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The Broad, Toiling Masses in all the Continents:Anticolonial Activists and the Atlantic CharterMark ReevesWestern Kentucky University, [email protected]

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THE BROAD, TOILING MASSES IN ALL THE CONTINENTS:

ANTICOLONIAL ACTIVISTS AND THE ATLANTIC CHARTER

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the Department of History

Western Kentucky University

Bowling Green, Kentucky

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

By

Mark L. Reeves

May 2014

I dedicate this thesis to the Baptist Campus Ministry of Western Kentucky University,

which provided me with a community, which helped me become a leader, and which

enabled me to discover the wonder of transnationalism through international student

ministry.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, I must acknowledge God, “for from him and through him and for him

are all things” (Romans 11:36). In Jesus Christ we see a kingdom of all peoples without

empires.

Dr. Juan Romero’s course on the Modern Middle East gave me the opportunity

to investigate Syrian decolonization during the Second World War, where I noticed the

frequent citation of the Atlantic Charter. Dr. Patricia Minter’s Senior Seminar in human

rights the semester before gave me the confidence to tackle the legal and rights history

this project implied. Dr. Minter’s well-timed advice, especially pointing me toward

Samuel Moyn’s work, has been priceless. Dr. Jen Walton-Hanley graciously sacrificed

time to do an independent reading on colonialism with me, a course which opened my

eyes to the rich world of anticolonial and postcolonial theory. Dr. Hanley, and the

course, opened up a whole new field of inquiry for me.

I must thank Dr. Beth Plummer and Dr. Robert Dietle for allowing me to take a

week off for research at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library after the

government shutdown nearly foiled my research trip. The Graduate School of Western

Kentucky University provided the funding for research at the National Archives and the

Library of Congress, for which I am very appreciative.

As with innumerable projects here at WKU, all would be lost without the

diligence and patience of Selina Langford and Ken Foushee in Interlibrary Loan. I often

wonder what they must think of me.

More generally, I extend my thanks to the History Department at WKU. I could

not have asked for a better intellectual environment in which to come of age

v

academically. I look forward to new frontiers, but I know those frontiers have been

charted out on the second floor of Cherry. Dr. Eric Reed swept in at a (in my book)

divinely-appointed moment to tempt me to study history again, and that conversation

changed my life. Ms. Janet Haynes, who runs our department with grace and a litany of

called-in-favors, is a university treasure. Maybe a national treasure, too. Our newest

resident, Dr. Marko Dumančić, usefully challenged me to articulate this project in a

clear way, and I owe him a great deal for helping me to chart where this project is going

next. To the History Department, the jewel of Western Kentucky University, I give my

sincerest thanks.

vi

CONTENTS

1. The Atlantic Charter in Anticolonial Perspective:

Historiography and Theory ......................................................................................... 1

2. "Write it in Water":

India and the Atlantic Charter ................................................................................... 35

3. "The Shade of Principles of Justice and Liberty":

Syria and the Atlantic Charter ................................................................................... 69

4. "He Had Seen It Work in the Philippines":

The Philippines and the Atlantic Charter ................................................................ 103

5. Conclusion:

The Three-Fifths World ........................................................................................... 132

Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 146

vii

THE BROAD, TOILING MASSES IN ALL THE CONTINENTS:

ANTICOLONIAL ACTIVISTS AND THE ATLANTIC CHARTER

Mark L. Reeves May 2014 160 Pages

Directed by: Beth Plummer, Chunmei Du, and Juan Romero

Department of History Western Kentucky University

The 1941 Atlantic Charter’s references to self-determination galvanized

anticolonial nationalists during the Second World War. These activists used the

principles enumerated in the Atlantic Charter to frame their demands. This thesis

examines three cases in the broader global context during the war, from vastly different

colonial and wartime situations: British-ruled India, French-ruled Syria, and the U.S.-

ruled Philippines. Across these different situations, anticolonial nationalists used the

Atlantic Charter in an attempt to legitimate their own projects.

This thesis shows that the elite nationalist movements examined here used a

common rhetoric from the Charter, but in variable ways. Each case study is examined in

depth, concluding with comparisons of how Indian, Syrian, and Philippine nationalist

movements cited, used, or ignored the Atlantic Charter. Broadly speaking, movements

in each of the case studies diverged between either dismissing the Charter as colonialist

hypocrisy, necessitating the rejection of political dialogue for more radical options, or

using the Charter as a tool to extract concessions from European and American colonial

regimes.

1

Chapter One

The Atlantic Charter in Anticolonial Perspective: Historiography and Theory

On August 14, 1941, during a summit off Newfoundland, U.S. President

Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued a joint

statement that surprised the world.1 The statement’s eight points described the broad

areas of Churchill and Roosevelt’s agreement over the post-war world, the “common

principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their

hopes for a better future for the world.” Included were traditional U.S. points about free

trade and freedom of the seas, as well as more New Deal-inspired goals of “improved

labor standards…and social security.”2 On the 14th the document appeared as a press

release in the United States, while in London Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee

read it to a worldwide BBC radio audience.3 The document quickly became known as

the “Atlantic Charter.”4

The Allies continued to reference the Charter in their documents throughout the

war. Shortly after its promulgation, Britain and its European allies affirmed the Atlantic

Charter as the basis for their opposition to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.5 After the

Japanese, German, and Italian declarations of war on the United States, President

1 For an overview of the negotiations of the Charter, see Theodore A. Wilson, The First Summit:

Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay, 1941, Revised Edition (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of

Kansas, 1991), 32, 89, 93, and 149ff.; Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, FDR and the Creation of

the U.N. (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1997), 36–40. 2 “Atlantic Charter,” The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, accessed April 8,

2013, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/atlantic.asp. 3 “Mr. Attlee’s Statement,” The Times, August 15, 1941. 4 Wilson, The First Summit, 192; Elizabeth Borgwardt, “When You State a Moral Principle, You Are

Stuck with It: The 1941 Atlantic Charter as a Human Rights Instrument,” Virginia Journal of

International Law 46, no. 3 (2006): 501–502. 5 “Inter-Allied Council Statement on the Principles of the Atlantic Charter: September 24, 1941,” Text,

The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, accessed December 11, 2013,

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/interall.asp.

2

Roosevelt joined Churchill in promulgating a “Declaration by United Nations” to serve

as the basis for the anti-Axis alliance.6 The signatory states to the Declaration were then

referred to as the “United Nations.” At the end of the war, the signatories participated in

the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, and

thus became the founding members of the United Nations Organization.7

The third point in the Atlantic Charter aroused the most interest globally: that the

United States and the United Kingdom “respect the right of all peoples to choose the

form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights

and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.”8 As

Roosevelt speechwriter Robert Sherwood observed, “it was not long before the people

of India, Burma, Malaya, and Indonesia were beginning to ask if the Atlantic Charter

extended also to the Pacific and to Asia in general.”9 Over the course of the war,

Sherwood’s comments proved too limiting. Indians, Burmese, Indonesians, and

Malaysians did appeal to it, but wartime appeals to the Atlantic Charter by anticolonial

nationalists spanned the entire globe. A brief sampling from the secondary literature

indicates that anticolonial nationalists from Asia, Africa, and the Americas all appealed

to the Charter. In sub-Saharan Africa, literature indicates that anticolonial nationalists in

6 “Declaration by the United Nations, January 1, 1942,” The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History

and Diplomacy, accessed December 11, 2013, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/decade03.asp. 7 Article 1, section 2(a), “Protocol of Proceedings of Crimea Conference,” The Avalon Project:

Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, accessed December 11, 2013,

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/yalta.asp. A few neutral nations, such as Turkey, joined the conference

and the UNO without signing the Declaration, cf. Article 1, section 2(b). 8 Point Three, “Atlantic Charter.” 9 Robert Sherwood, quoted in Borgwardt, “When You State a Moral Principle, You Are Stuck with It,”

527–528.

3

South Africa,10 Southern Rhodesia,11 Northern Rhodesia,12 Madagascar,13 Kenya,14 and

Nigeria15 all appealed to the Atlantic Charter during the War. Nationalists in Tunisia16

and Algeria,17 activists in Iraq,18 as well as officials in Iran19 cited the Atlantic Charter.

Likewise in the Americas, anticolonialists in the West Indies20 along with pro-

democracy activists in Guatemala and El Salvador.21 In the United States, African-

American activists used the Charter to engage with, appeal to, and critique the U.S.

government during the war years.22

10 Saul Dubow, “South Africa and South Africans: Nationality, Belonging, Citizenship,” in The

Cambridge History of South Africa, ed. Robert Ross, Anne Kelk Mager, and Bill Nasson, vol. 2, 1885-

1994 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 52. 11 Michael O. West, “Ndabaningi Sithole, Garfield Todd and the Dadaya School Strike of 1947,” Journal

of Southern African Studies 18, no. 2 (June 1992): 299. 12 Rosaleen Smyth, “War Propaganda during the Second World War in Northern Rhodesia,” African

Affairs 83, no. 332 (July 1984): 356–358. Smyth’s work is exemplary for enumerating numerous

perspectives on the Charter, rather than simply noting its citation. 13 Douglas Little, “Cold War and Colonialism in Africa: The United States, France, and the Madagascar

Revolt of 1947,” Pacific Historical Review 59, no. 4 (November 1990): 533 and 535. 14 Fay Gadsden, “The African Press in Kenya, 1945-1952,” The Journal of African History 21, no. 4

(January 1980): 520; Fay Gadsden, “Wartime Propaganda in Kenya: The Kenya Information Office, 1939-

1945,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 19, no. 3 (January 1986): 419. 15 John Flint, “Planned Decolonization and Its Failure in British Africa,” African Affairs 82, no. 328 (July

1983): 410; Robert Pearce, “The Colonial Office and Planned Decolonization in Africa,” African Affairs

83, no. 330 (January 1984): 85. 16 Kenneth J. Perkins, “North African Propaganda and the United States, 1946-1956,” African Studies

Review 19, no. 3 (December 1976): 66. 17 Fabian Klose, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya

and Algeria, trans. Dona Geyer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 24–25. 18 Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old

Landed and Commercial Classes and of Its Communists, Ba`thists, and Free Officers (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1978), 524. 19 F. Eshraghi, “The Immediate Aftermath of Anglo-Soviet Occupation of Iran in August 1941,” Middle

Eastern Studies 20, no. 3 (July 1984): 343. 20 Tony Martin, “Eric Williams and the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission: Trinidad’s Future

Nationalist Leader as Aspiring Imperial Bureaucrat, 1942-1944,” The Journal of African American

History 88, no. 3 (July 2003): 285. 21 Peter Calvert, “Demilitarisation in Latin America,” Third World Quarterly 7, no. 1 (January 1985): 35;

Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 23. 22 Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960 (Chapel

Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 93, 110–111, 123, and 164; Penny M. Von Eschen,

Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University

Press, 1997), 25–28; Carol Anderson, Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American

Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 16–17; Nico

4

However, the scholars cited here only mention the appearance of the Atlantic

Charter within individual national narratives. Other scholars dealing with global

narratives have briefly noted the global efflorescence of anticolonial use of the Charter,

but they have not explored it in any depth. This thesis will attempt to fill the gap

between these two tendencies. In this, it follows the methodology of Erez Manela’s The

Wilsonian Moment, which analyzed the worldwide movements for self-determination

emerging around Woodrow Wilson’s idealistic statements in 1918-1919.

Acknowledging that appeals to Wilson’s self-determination came from almost

everywhere, Manela chose four countries to examine in depth. In like manner, this thesis

will examine Atlantic Charter-talk in three case studies: India, Syria, and the

Philippines. In so doing, I hope like Manela “to combine fine-grained detail with a broad

perspective.”23

The Atlantic Charter has spanned a sizable literature, but none of it has examined

how anticolonialists used the Charter. This opening will address the historiography of

the Atlantic Charter. Then, it will introduce a theoretical background for how

anticolonial nationalists mobilized against colonial powers by using documents such as

the Charter. This background will then inform the three case studies. As the survey of

literature above shows, the Atlantic Charter provided a rhetorical space in which

anticolonial nationalists could call attention to the hypocrisy of the Allied war effort.

Despite their attempts to limit its application, U.S. and British policymakers could not

Slate, Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 131–133. 23 Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial

Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 8.

5

stop the peoples within their own empires from exploiting their own rhetoric against

empire.

The Atlantic Charter has already engaged many scholars in useful questions

concerning diplomatic history, international law, and human rights. However, few have

considered how activists among the residents of Euro-American empires applied the

words to themselves. Anticolonial theory offers some useful reflections for such a study,

noting the limitations and possibilities from such tactics. Notably, these tactics often

originated in elite leaders, and so a study of those tactics needs to acknowledge that

limitation. This thesis seeks to study political movements for self-determination and

anticolonialism in a global lens through filling the non-Western hole in Atlantic Charter

historiography.

The three case studies will be limited, and may not prove to be representative.

Comparison will help to screen out some faulty generalizations, but future research will

need to be done on nuances in mobilization, indifference to the Charter, and more

subaltern and gendered analyses of the Charter and self-determination in general. This

thesis hopes simply to start a conversation, asking the question: how did anticolonialists

use the Atlantic Charter?

Terminology

Like any study of colonialism, this project faces problems of slippery

terminology. Both in the 1940s and today the terms “colonialism” and “imperialism”

have become synonymous. The conflation of these words obscures their distinctive and

important meanings. Imperialism, in particular, can refer to a Leninist theoretical model

6

or to a special sort of colonialism (or vice versa).24 For the period under consideration,

both terms came to refer to European, U.S., and Japanese rule over overseas polities.

These “metropoles” claimed sovereignty over these territories, often “un-forming or re-

forming the communities that existed there already,” or at least attempting to do so.25

Since both terms have described these phenomena, this thesis will use “colonialism” as a

catch-all.

The conflation of “colonialism” and “imperialism” even in scholarly usage

becomes apparent when we seek to name movements that opposed those phenomena.

Historians and contemporaries have almost always dubbed these movements

“anticolonial,” or “anticolonialist,” even if they contested “imperialist” processes. “Anti-

imperialism” has none of the currency of “anticolonialism.” Therefore, in order to be

clear about what “anticolonial” refers to, I will use “colonial” to describe the processes

of overseas political domination confronted by those “anticolonialists.” I do not suggest

“anticolonialism” as a unified ideology, but instead as a placeholder for a wide variety

of political methods opposing colonialism. As Ania Loomba notes with the equally

evasive term “postcolonialism,” terms like colonialism, imperialism, and anticolonialism

are useful “only if we use [them] with caution and qualifications.” In this they are

comparable to “patriarchy,” operating as “a useful shorthand for conveying a

24 To illustrate the problem, two works from the same year hold two opposite delineations of

colonialism/imperialism: compare Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 2nd ed. (New York:

Routledge, 2005), 11–12; Jürgen Osterhammel, Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, trans. Shelley L.

Frisch, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2005), 21–22. 25 Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 8. Emphasis in original.

7

relationship…that is, in practice, highly variable because it always works alongside

other social structures.”26

“Anticolonialist” also leaves enough room to include figures whose ideologies

did not fit neatly as “nationalists.” However, many of the figures cited in this thesis will

qualify as “anticolonial nationalists.” Benedict Anderson’s canonical Imagined

Communities forms the basis for this thesis’s understanding of nationalism. Hence,

many nationalist movements profiled here sought to form future states which would be

isomorphic with the colonial territory, seeking to forge together multiethnic populations

under a new postcolonial identity.27 The shape of the colonial polity framed the debates

over self-determination that the Atlantic Charter’s third clause prompted, helping to

identify the “selves” for whom activists sought self-determination. In each of the case

studies, other actors contested these conceptions, such as the Pakistan movement in

British India and Greater Syrianists or pan-Arab nationalists in French-mandated Syria.

This thesis will only scratch the surface of the complex dynamics involved in

representing and contesting those selves.

By self-determination, this thesis refers to the form specified, in my

interpretation, by the Atlantic Charter: self-determination incorporating both

independence and democratic governance. The ambiguity of the slogan “self-

determination” leaves these questions vague, such that “national self-determination” can

refer to “a French government in France” or “an elected government in France,” or a

26 Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 21. 27 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,

revised edition (New York: Verso, 1991), 114–115; on the Spanish creole model for this, cf. 52 and 57.

8

combination.28 Thankfully, the Charter’s third point actually delineated certain political

conditions, which contemporaries then referred to as “self-determination,” harkening

back to the Wilsonian and Leninist concept. Hence, self-determination here will refer to

“the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live,”

including the restoration of “sovereign rights and self government…to those who have

been forcibly deprived of them.”29 Naturally, this leaves many questions (what

constitutes a “people”?, how shall the choice be made?, what are “sovereign rights and

self-government”?), but these will form the boundaries for the questions this thesis shall

examine. The questions excite contestations in the past and present.

Historiography

Scholarly literature about the Atlantic Charter has come in a few discrete lines of

inquiry. Diplomatic history has focused on the facts of Roosevelt and Churchill’s 1941

meeting, the production of the Charter, and its place in wartime inter-Allied politics.

Other more diffuse thematic lines have placed the Atlantic Charter within the context of

wartime and postwar international law and human rights. More recent historical work

broadened the inquiry into wartime human rights and international law, and so this thesis

will seek to situate anticolonial uses of the Charter into that new work.

Theodore Wilson’s 1969 reconstruction of the Atlantic Conference remains the

definitive account of the events which produced the Charter. Wilson included a blow-

by-blow account of the drafting of the Atlantic Charter, describing the back-and-forth

28 Benyamin Neuberger, “National Self-Determination: Dilemmas of a Concept,” Nations and

Nationalism 1, no. 3 (1995): 300. Neuberger explores theoretically many of the issues brought up by these

terms. 29 Point Three, “Atlantic Charter.”

9

between Roosevelt and Churchill.30 Most of the discussion concerned the issue of free

trade, eventually covered in the Charter’s fourth point. This line of inquiry has resulted

in studies focusing on Euro-American political economy and the narrow diplomatic

history of the Charter’s production.31

Using Wilson’s account, a second generation of diplomatic historians integrated

the Charter into their narratives about the Anglo-American wartime relationship. David

Reynolds particularly brought out how the Atlantic Charter proved a flop in Britain, with

Britons disappointed in a mere declaration of principles and not a declaration of war.32

Christopher Thorne, Roger Louis, and John Sbrega all analyzed at length the high-level

Anglo-American differences over colonialism, particularly concerning the British

Empire in the war theaters of Southeast Asia and India.33 U.S. authors who focused on

Roosevelt’s personal leadership formed a counterpart to these analysts.34 Townsend

Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley also discuss the Atlantic Charter as an episode in the

30 Wilson, The First Summit, 159–178. 31 Alan P. Dobson, “Economic Diplomacy at the Atlantic Conference,” Review of International Studies

10, no. 2 (April 1984): 143–63; L. S. Pressnell and Sheila V. Hopkins, “A Canard out of Time? Churchill,

the War Cabinet, and the Atlantic Charter, August 1941,” Review of International Studies 14, no. 3 (July

1988): 223–35. 32 David Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 1937-1941 (Chapel Hill, NC:

University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 214, 258–259; he then emphasized this point in David

Reynolds, “The Atlantic ‘Flop’: British Foreign Policy and the Churchill-Roosevelt Meeting of August

1941,” in The Atlantic Charter, ed. Douglas Brinkley and David R. Facey-Crowther (New York: St.

Martin’s Press, 1994), 129–50. 33 Christopher G. Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941-

1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978), 160–162, 209–212, among others; Wm. Roger Louis,

Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941-1945 (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1978); John J. Sbrega, Anglo-American Relations and Colonialism in East

Asia, 1941-1945 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1983). 34 Foster Rhea Dulles and Gerald E. Ridinger, “The Anti-Colonial Policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt,”

Political Science Quarterly 70, no. 1 (March 1955): 1–18; John J. Sbrega, “The Anticolonial Policies of

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Reappraisal,” Political Science Quarterly 101, no. 1 (January 1986): 65–84;

Fred E. Pollock and Warren F. Kimball, “‘In Search of Monsters to Destroy’: Roosevelt and Colonialism,”

in The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman, by Warren F. Kimball (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1991), 127–58; on the Atlantic Charter specifically, cf. Warren F. Kimball,

“The Atlantic Charter: ‘With All Deliberate Speed,’” in The Atlantic Charter, ed. Douglas Brinkley and

David R. Facey-Crowther (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 83–114.

10

wartime rise of the United Nations Organization.35 Indian historian M.S.

Venkataramani’s caustic revision of these scholars’ sympathetic treatment of Roosevelt

offers a useful foil, since he doubts Roosevelt’s personal anticolonialism where other

scholars do not.36 However, all of these analyses center on U.S. and British officials’

discussions of colonialism and ignore other levels of discourse.

International law and human rights comprise the other thematic line of writing

about the Atlantic Charter. The late Belizean diplomat Edward Laing served as the point

of intersection for these themes. Laing produced three articles valorizing the Atlantic

Charter. He argued that it served as the impetus for the postwar “norm of self-

determination,” which would place the Charter at the center of a legal history of

anticolonial self-determination.37 He also positioned the Charter as the legal progenitor

of postwar global individual human rights.38 Elizabeth Borgwardt has continued Laing’s

argument about the Charter as a human rights document, while largely neglecting his

focus on its contribution to self-determination.39

Like Borgwardt and Laing, historians of human rights have noted the Atlantic

Charter’s references to individual rights.40 These references come in its sixth point,

35 Hoopes and Brinkley, FDR and the Creation of the U.N., 36–40 and 46. 36 M.S. Venkataramani, “The United States, the Colonial Issue, and the Atlantic Charter Hoax,”

International Studies 13, no. 1 (January 1974): 1–28. 37 Edward A. Laing, “The Norm of Self-Determination, 1941-1991,” California Western International

Law Journal 22, no. 2 (1992): 209–308. 38 Edward A. Laing, “Relevance of the Atlantic Charter for a New World Order,” Indian Journal of

International Law 29, no. 3/4 (December 1989): 298–325; Edward A. Laing, “The Contribution of the

Atlantic Charter to Human Rights Law and Humanitarian Universalism,” Willamette Law Review 26

(1989): 113–70. 39 Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge, MA:

The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005); Borgwardt, “When You State a Moral Principle,

You Are Stuck with It.” 40 Paul Gordon Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen, Third Edition

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 140; Mark Mazower, “The Strange Triumph of

Human Rights, 1933-1950,” The Historical Journal 47, no. 2 (June 2004): 385.

11

which refers to establishing “a peace…which will afford assurance that all the men in all

lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.”41 This referred back to

President Roosevelt’s January 6, 1941, State of the Union address, which referred to

securing “four essential human freedoms,” including the freedoms from want and fear.42

Addressing an independent, domestic audience, Roosevelt made no mention of self-

determination. The Charter’s third point, which referred to self-determination, does not

contain any reference to individual rights per se. Therefore, the historians who position

the Atlantic Charter in the history of human rights conflate separate portions of the

document: its references to self-determination and its references to individual rights.

Like Elizabeth Borgwardt, these historians highlight the Charter’s individual rights

clauses while neglecting its self-determination clauses.

The conflation becomes more important because the same authors who highlight

the Atlantic Charter’s contribution to individual human rights also tend to include

anticolonialism as a human rights cause. This has become a fault-line in the burgeoning

historiography of human rights. Authors such as Brian Simpson, Reza Afshari, Jan

Eckel, and Samuel Moyn critique writers such as Paul Gordon Lauren for referring to

anticolonialism as a human rights movement. Since writers such as Moyn conceive of

human rights as individual rights, they point out that anticolonialism contests the

management of the state, rather than protecting individuals from the state.43

41 Point Six, “Atlantic Charter.” 42 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, January 6, 1941”

(Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project), accessed December 8, 2013,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16092. 43 A.W. Brian Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European

Convention (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 300; Reza Afshari, “On Historiography of

Human Rights Reflections on Paul Gordon Lauren’s ‘The Evolution of International Human Rights:

Visions Seen,’” Human Rights Quarterly 29, no. 1 (February 2007): 50; Jan Eckel, “Human Rights and

12

In attacking the inclusion of anticolonialism as a human rights issue, these critics

center on the Atlantic Charter. Brian Simpson points out that Borgwardt and Lauren

accept at face value wartime rhetoric which “tended to assimilate the ‘Four Freedoms’

speech with [the Atlantic Charter].”44 That is, their references to the Charter as an

individual rights document really draw more on the Four Freedoms speech. In defense of

these authors, Roosevelt himself conflated the two repeatedly, referring to the Four

Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter in the same breath on multiple occasions.45 However,

the critics are right to point out that the Atlantic Charter generated worldwide interest for

its references to self-determination, not to human rights. In so doing, the critics point out

the gap in the historiography on the Atlantic Charter which this thesis seeks to fill.

Decolonization: New Perspectives and Open Questions,” Humanity: An International Journal of Human

Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 1, no. 1 (Fall 2010): 114–115; Samuel Moyn, The Last

Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,

2010), 87–88; Samuel Moyn, “Imperialism, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Human Rights,” in The

Human Rights Revolution: An International History, ed. Akira Iriye, Petra Goedde, and William I.

Hitchcock (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 162. 44 Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire, 175. 45 Roosevelt’s speech to the International Student Assembly in September 1942 also distanced these

objectives from achievability: “In the concept of the four freedoms, in the basic principles of the Atlantic

Charter, we have set for ourselves high goals, unlimited objectives.” Later in the same speech, he paired

the two again as twin slogans, referring to them as “the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter”: Franklin

D. Roosevelt, “Address to the International Student Assembly, September 3, 1942” (Gerhard Peters and

John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project), accessed December 8, 2013,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16300. Roosevelt performed a similar pairing in his 1943 speech

in Ottawa: Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Ottawa, Canada, August 25, 1943” (Gerhard Peters and


http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16448. The Democratic Party Platform of 1944 did the same:

“Democratic Party Platform of 1944, July 19, 1944” (Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American

Presidency Project), accessed December 8, 2013, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29598.

Likewise Roosevelt during the 1944 campaign: Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Soldiers’ Field,

Chicago, Illinois, October 28, 1944” (Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency

Project), accessed December 8, 2013, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16460. In his final major

speech, Roosevelt did seem to link the Charter with individual human rights, speaking in the same breath

about a peace “based on the sound and justice principles of the Atlantic Charter - on the concept of the

dignity of the human being”: Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address to Congress on the Yalta Conference,

March 1, 1945” (Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project), accessed

December 8, 2013, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16591.

13

The human rights historians in both camps do agree that the Atlantic Charter

prompted a global outpouring of interest in self-determination.46 The scholars critical of

reading the Atlantic Charter into human rights history affirm this global efflorescence as

evidence that contemporary observers saw self-determination, not human rights, in the

Charter.47 From my reading, their critique offers a useful corrective to the uneasy

amalgamation of self-determination with individual rights in Borgwardt’s work.

However, the critique goes too far by assuming that contemporary readings of the

Charter preclude later appropriations of the Charter for different purposes. As we shall

see, individuals and groups appropriated the Atlantic Charter in a variety of ways that

went against its authors’ original intentions.

Human rights historiography has often drawn attention to oppressed peoples

appropriating the legal codes of their dominators. Anticolonialists’ use of the Charter,

promulgated by colonial powers, fit into this pattern. Moyn summarizes this pattern as

“tales…told of seizures from below of the formal universalisms of dominant peoples,

classes, and nations.”48 For example, Bonny Ibhawoh’s 2007 study tells of Nigerian

appeals to British law and then to universal rights-talk in pursuit of varied aims.

Ibhawoh singles out the Atlantic Charter as “an important part of the nationalist

rhetoric” and acknowledges that “public discussion over the charter centered on its

46 Laing, “Relevance of the Atlantic Charter for a New World Order,” 310; Laing, “The Norm of Self-

Determination, 1941-1991,” 259–267; Borgwardt, “When You State a Moral Principle, You Are Stuck

with It,” 531, 549, 552–554; Eckel, “Human Rights and Decolonization,” 114; Moyn, The Last Utopia,

85, 88–89, 91; Moyn, “Imperialism, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Human Rights,” 163–164. 47 Eckel, “Human Rights and Decolonization,” 114; Moyn, The Last Utopia, 88–89; Moyn, “Imperialism,

Self-Determination, and the Rise of Human Rights,” 162–163. 48 Moyn, “Imperialism, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Human Rights,” 161.

14

famous third clause,” that on self-determination.49 Roland Burke’s 2010 study centers on

African and Asian diplomatic contributions to human rights, particularly in the United

Nations. He presents newly independent states’ diplomats arguing for universal human

rights and articulating a universal right to self-determination in the 1950s.50 Burke

highlights the contributions of non-Western figures, but he does so only for the postwar

era. Ibhawoh notices the importance of the Atlantic Charter, but his wide-ranging focus

only permits a few comments on it. This thesis, then, seeks to draw attention to the many

activists who used similar arguments during the war, arguing for the global application

of the right to self-determination.

Whether one considers the right to self-determination a human right or not, the

historiography of human rights has certainly affirmed the importance of self-

determination discourse for anticolonialism. Moreover, it has shown the importance of

the Atlantic Charter for that discourse. Of all the authors critical of Borgwardt, Moyn

lays greatest stress upon the importance of the Atlantic Charter – for self-determination,

rather than human rights. He even claims that the Charter “powerfully reanimated…the

promise of self-determination.”51 Sadly, a broader historiography of self-determination

itself cannot be found. As Brad Simpson wrote recently, “few historians have offered

sustained treatments of self-determination as a dynamic force in international politics,

exploring specific moments or episodes rather than examining self-determination’s

49 Bonny Ibhawoh, Imperialism and Human Rights: Colonial Discourses of Rights and Liberties in

African History (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007), 142 and 153. 50 Roland Burke, Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights (Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 4, 38–47, and 147–148. 51 Moyn, The Last Utopia, 85.

15

contested meaning over time.”52 This thesis will not fill that gap, which must await

Simpson’s forthcoming book.

However, this thesis will contribute one more “specific moment or episode”

which a longer survey could piece together with others. This thesis will help fill the gap

between the Wilsonian moment of the 1920s, identified by Erez Manela, and what Moyn

characterizes as the Wilsonian moment’s “second, more successful chance after World

War II.”53 Burke shows the critical role that non-Western actors played in making the

second Wilsonian moment more successful for self-determination, but remains silent on

how self-determination re-emerged in global discourse. This thesis will tell the story of

the beginning of that second Wilsonian moment.

In that sense, this work also builds on the research of Marika Sherwood. Her

excellent articles have looked at how African anticolonial activists used the Atlantic

Charter and pressured the United Nations alliance to honor its promises, particularly at

the San Francisco Conference.54 However, her work only deals with African and Afro-

Caribbean groups, and on the Atlantic Charter she restricts her lens to groups active in

the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, she establishes an excellent groundwork for

discussing anticolonial mobilization of the Charter.

Like Sherwood’s work on the Atlantic Charter, this thesis focuses on what

people did with the Charter. Whatever the Charter’s authors intended, their

52 Brad Simpson, “The United States and the Curious History of Self-Determination,” Diplomatic History

36, no. 4 (2012): 676–677. 53 Moyn, “Imperialism, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Human Rights,” 162; cf. also Moyn, The Last

Utopia, 88. 54 On the Atlantic Charter particularly, cf. Marika Sherwood, “‘Diplomatic Platitudes’: The Atlantic

Charter, the United Nations and Colonial Independence,” Immigrants and Minorities 15, no. 2 (July

1996): 135–50; on San Francisco, cf. Marika Sherwood, “‘There Is No New Deal for the Blackman in San

Francisco’: African Attempts to Influence the Founding Conference of the United Nations, April-July,

1945,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 29, no. 1 (1996): 71–94.

16

“efforts…would not be so much passively received as actively transformed,” and the

Charter “took on a life of [its] own.”55 Regarding the Charter’s promise of self-

determination, “anticolonial activists did not wait to find out if Roosevelt meant what he

said and seized the charter’s promises of self-rule to describe and lend legitimacy to

their ongoing struggles.”56 This thesis will look at how three movements of anticolonial

activists “seized the charter’s promises.”

Just as Manela used case studies to bridge the local and the global, this thesis

will also heed the advice of the late Kenneth Cmiel and use its three case studies to

attend “to the nuances of political language in different cultural settings.”57 Brad

Simpson sees the same need for global and transnational analysis in the context of self-

determination, in order “to treat self-determination as part of both global and [local]

politics.”58 In as much as this thesis honors these commitments, it fits into the recent

turn toward transnationalism. Particularly, it honors the trend toward “placing of the

non-western world at the centre rather than the periphery of the nexus of transnational

forces that shaped the mid-twentieth century.”59

Doing so, however, goes against the intentions of the Atlantic Charter’s chief

interpreter. Winston Churchill, in his radio address on returning from his Conference

“somewhere in the Atlantic,” proclaimed that he and Roosevelt had taken up “the

guidance of the fortunes of the broad, toiling masses in all the continents…to lead them

55 Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World, 8, 10. 56 Simpson, “The United States and the Curious History of Self-Determination,” 679. 57 Kenneth Cmiel, “The Recent History of Human Rights,” The American Historical Review 109, no. 1

(February 2004): 120. 58 Simpson, “The United States and the Curious History of Self-Determination,” 694. 59 Matthew Hilton and Rana Mitter, “Introduction,” Past & Present Supplement 8 (2013): 14. Hilton and

Mitter introduced a supplement devoted to this recent transnational turn and offered a survey of the field

in their introduction.

17

forward out of the miseries into which they have been plunged back to the broad high-

road of freedom and justice.”60 Churchill intended to dictate the route toward freedom

and justice. This thesis will show, though, that many of the “broad, toiling masses in all

the continents” did not intend to follow Churchill’s lead. As with Woodrow Wilson’s

attempt to shape the postwar world in 1918, the Atlantic Charter “acquired meanings in

the colonies that Churchill had not foreseen.”61 Anticolonial activists charted out their

own broad high-roads of freedom and justice, ones which Churchill never intended to

lay out for them.

The Charter in Anticolonial Perspective

Debates about the Atlantic Charter during the war found echoes in the ironies

identified by postwar anticolonial theorists. Critiquing the idea that the Allies fought

against colonialism in the War, authors such as Aimé Césaire, Albert Memmi, and

Frantz Fanon turned their attention to the parallels between Allied and Nazi colonial

rule. Jean-Paul Sartre’s anticolonial writings also contribute important insights.

Likewise, during the war, debates about the Atlantic Charter centered on whether it

applied to the Axis empires alone or to Allied empires also. The question of

comparability aligned closely to the question of applicability of the Charter.

The question of the applicability of the Charter emerged almost as soon as its

promulgation. Clement Attlee addressed this issue as he spoke to West African students,

one day after reading the Charter for the absent Churchill. On August 15, he told the

60 Churchill’s August 24, 1941 radio broadcast, quoted in H.V. Morton, Atlantic Meeting (New York:

Dodd, Mead & Company, 1943), 186. 61 Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United

Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 55.

18

students that “you will find [the Atlantic Charter] principles will apply, I believe, to all

the peoples of the world.”62 Such a possibility aroused nationalists from around the

world. If the Charter’s third point applied to colonies, colonized populations could

choose their own form of government (independence) and have their sovereign rights

restored after having been forcibly deprived of them (by Allied colonial powers). As

Lloyd Gardner noted, “even the first press reports of the [Atlantic] conference…raised

questions of universal applicability.”63

Anticolonial appeals to the Atlantic Charter used the words of the colonizers

against them. The Tunisian analyst Albert Memmi saw this as a longstanding

anticolonial technique, that of using “the very values of the colonizer.”64 In the case of

the Atlantic Charter, two colonial powers had declared their own values, including the

right to self-determination. In appealing to the Charter, then, anticolonialists used the

colonizer’s values. By appealing to the Atlantic Charter, anticolonial activists “only

wanted [Europe] to recognize [their] rights.”65 In this sense, appeals to the Charter

represented a form of assimilationism. That is, anticolonial activists appealed for the

integration of their colonial polities into an Atlantic Charter-based world order, one

which recognized their right to self-determination. Frantz Fanon decried such

assimilationism, arguing that the engagement of elite bourgeois nationalists with the

62 “Freedom for All Races,” The Times, August 16, 1941. We should note that Churchill and Attlee served

together in a War Cabinet brought together by necessity rather than ideological affinity. Attlee’s Labour

Party had long embraced at least the rhetoric of self-determination. 63 Lloyd C. Gardner, “The Atlantic Charter: Idea and Reality, 1942-1945,” in The Atlantic Charter, ed.

Douglas Brinkley and David R. Facey-Crowther (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 50. 64 Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, trans. Howard Greenfield (Boston: Beacon Press,

1991), 129. 65 Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, 145.

19

colonizing society via its values formed a roadblock to forming true solidarity with the

revolutionary peasantry.66

However, the engagement remained largely one-sided. On September 9, 1941,

Churchill spoke in Parliament to answer the question of whether the Charter indeed

applied to the colonized world. In light of its importance, the speech merits extensive

quotation here:

…At the Atlantic meeting, we had in mind, primarily, the restoration of the sovereignty,

self-government and national life of the States and nations of Europe now under the

Nazi yoke, and the principles governing any alterations in the territorial boundaries

which may have to be made. So that is quite a separate problem from the progressive

evolution of self-governing institutions in the regions and peoples which owe allegiance

to the British Crown. We have made declarations on these matters which are complete in

themselves, free from ambiguity and related to the conditions and circumstances of the

territories and peoples affected. They will be found to be entirely in harmony with the

high conception of freedom and justice which inspired the Joint Declaration [the

Atlantic Charter].67

Churchill thus suggested that the Atlantic Charter only actually applied to the conquered

lands of Europe. Churchill felt no qualms about maintaining limitations on “the

sovereignty, self-government and national life” of territories under colonial rule. He

rejected the appeals of anticolonialists to the colonizer’s values enumerated in the

Charter.

Postwar anticolonial theorists would have expected nothing different. As Memmi

put it, colonizers could never recognize the application of rights to the colonized.

Instead, colonizers needed to remain the only legitimate actors in an international

system, setting themselves as the “mediator” of that order to the colonized polities.68

66 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press, 1968),

44. 67 374 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons [hereafter Parl. Deb., H.C.] (5th ser.) (1941) 68-69.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/09/war-situation (accessed March 8, 2013). 68 Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, 58.

20

Rights would only apply to “legitimate actors,” who would then mediate those rights to

the colonized. In Churchill’s construction, the Atlantic Charter applied to Europe alone.

That is, an Atlantic Charter-based international system proved coterminous with Europe.

M.S. Venkataramani noticed this in the Atlantic Charter’s reference to “sovereign

rights.” After all, in an imperial conception of international law, only European nations

had truly “sovereign rights,” and indeed “Britain…had ‘sovereign rights’ in India and

Nigeria.”69 Thus, reaffirming sovereignty did no good to anticolonialists when the

sovereignty was that of empires. Roger Normand and Sarah Zaidi applied the same logic

to the Declaration by United Nations, whose promise to “uphold ‘sovereign rights and

self-government’…furthermore left open the interpretation of whether sovereign rights

of imperialist nations would continue to trump non-European aspirations for

independence.”70 The postwar environment of continued European colonialism certainly

bore out this interpretation. Churchill’s Atlantic Charter applied only to European

nation-states, the center of his conception of international law. In the words of a British

civil servant of the Raj, “the maxims of international law” only applied to “the relations

of independent and co-equal European States.”71

However, Churchill represented the British Empire as the mediator of self-

determination to its colonial possessions. He claimed that British “declarations” related

to “the progressive evolution of self-governing institutions in the regions and peoples

which owe allegiance to the British Crown…will be found to be entirely in harmony

69 Venkataramani, “The United States, the Colonial Issue, and the Atlantic Charter Hoax,” 18. 70 Roger Normand and Sarah Zaidi, Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal Justice

(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008), 93. 71 Quoted in Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (New York: The Penguin

Press, 2008), 587.

21

with the high conception of freedom and justice which inspired the Joint Declaration

[the Atlantic Charter].”72 To concede this, however, left all authority in the hands of the

British government. Given Churchill’s leadership of the “diehards” opposed to the

limited devolution of power to Indians in the 1935 Government of India Act, his conceit

to continuing British power in India came as no surprise.73

Hence, Churchill’s qualification fit into Memmi’s construction of colonizers as

mediators of rights. By insisting on colonial powers mediating the international order to

their colonies, Churchill set up a rights regime which remained “totally extraneous to the

colonized so that he can never avail himself of it.”74 For example, the wartime South

African leader Jan Smuts could simply reject the African National Congress’

appropriation of the Atlantic Charter “as a false reading” of the document.75 Churchill’s

Eurocentric Atlantic Charter-rights regime, in Sartre’s terms, sought for Europeans to

enjoy “democratic rights that the colonialist system refuses to the colonized native.”76

That is, the European nations conquered by the Nazis had the right to enjoy restoration

and self-government, but Asian, African, and Caribbean territories conquered by

European powers had no such rights. To use Partha Chatterjee’s term, Churchill applied

“the rule of colonial difference” to the Atlantic Charter, denying to colonized people the

universality of rights proclaimed in the Charter.77 Like so many other universal rights

72 374 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1941) 68-69.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/09/war-situation (accessed March 8, 2013). 73 Cf. John Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 (New

York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 446–448. 74 Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, 58. 75 Mazower, No Enchanted Palace, 56. 76 Jean-Paul Sartre, “Introduction,” in The Colonizer and the Colonized, by Albert Memmi, trans.

Lawrence Hoey and Howard Greenfield (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), xxiv. 77 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1993), 10, 16.

22

declarations issued from the West, universalist language only really applied to

Europeans or their descendants.

Roosevelt disagreed rhetorically with Churchill’s interpretation of the Charter. In

his Fireside Chat of February 23, 1942, Roosevelt declared in no uncertain terms that

“the Atlantic Charter applies not only to the parts of the world that border the Atlantic

but to the whole world,” including its provision about “self-determination of Nations

and peoples.”78 However, the disagreement remained merely rhetorical. Roosevelt did

not press for the implementation of the Atlantic Charter. In fact, as inevitable

compromises with the British and the Soviets approached, Roosevelt began to back

away from the Atlantic Charter as an achievable vision.79 Rather, he presented it as an

ideal to strive for in the long term. By late 1944, Roosevelt characterized the Charter as

“an objective” to be achieved in the range of centuries, or even millennia, like “a great

many of the previous pronouncements that go back many centuries [but] have not been

attained yet.”80 Thus, Roosevelt created a rhetorical space in which to escape having to

directly apply the principles of the Charter. To the extent that decolonization proceeded

during the war and after, it came from the efforts of anticolonialists and adjustments in

the international system, not honoring the Atlantic Charter. Largely, “the announced

78 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat, February 23, 1942” (Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The

American Presidency Project), accessed December 4, 2013,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16224. 79 Shown most recently by Frank Costigliola, Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped

Start the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 169, 185, 191, 210–211, and 227–

229. 80 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Excerpts from the Press Conference, December 22, 1944” (Gerhard Peters and


http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16484.

23

principle of the Atlantic Charter, self-determination, is one the Americans decided they

did not have to be stuck with after all.”81

The disagreement in interpretation reminds us that, from its Anglo-American

authors’ perspective, “the Atlantic Charter…was a deeply ambiguous document.”82 On

its face value, though, the Charter had very clear meaning: a universal right to self-

determination. Despite repeated appeals, “the effort to catch the West with its own moral

language had failed.”83 The failure of the Allies to live up to the Atlantic Charter fit into

a long tradition of Western hypocrisy. As reviewed by Robert Young, “Western

humanism and rights discourse…had worked by excluding a majority of the world’s

population from the category of the human.”84

Hypocrisy of this type formed the basis for many postwar anticolonial theorists’

rejection of making arguments based on Western pronouncements and values. Fanon

observed with disgust that Western discourse is “never done talking of Man” and yet

bases itself on raw violence directed against humans.85 Likewise, Aimé Césaire

condemned European humanistic idealism, which he dubbed “pseudo-humanism,” since

it “has diminished the rights of man” through “sordidly racist” restrictions of their

application to Europeans.86 Césaire would thus likely dismiss the high rhetoric of the

81 Moyn, “Imperialism, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Human Rights,” 163. 82 Mazower, No Enchanted Palace, 55. Redonnet calls it “fundamentally ambiguous”: Jean-Claude

Redonnet, “La relation spéciale à l’épreuve du colonialisme et de l’impérialisme,” Revue française de

civilisation britannique 12, no. 1 (October 2002): 75. 83 Benjamin Gregg, “Individuals as Authors of Human Rights: Not Only Addressees,” Theory and Society

39, no. 6 (November 2010): 645. 84 Robert J.C. Young, “Sartre: The ‘African Philosopher,’” in Colonialism and Neocolonialism, by Jean-

Paul Sartre, trans. Azzedine Haddour, Steve Brewer, and Terry McWilliams (New York: Routledge,

2006), xvii. 85 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 311–313; cf. also Jean-Paul Sartre, “Preface,” in The Wretched of the

Earth, by Frantz Fanon, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press, 1968), 24–26. 86 Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly Review Press,

2000), 37.

24

Atlantic Charter, especially once Churchill restricted its application to the subjugated

peoples of Europe.

Acknowledging these limits on Atlantic Charter rhetoric should not dissuade us

from studying its mobilization by anticolonialists. Even Fanon differentiated between

European hypocrisy and the utility of the ideas they expressed. Fanon acknowledged

that “all the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different

times, existed in European thought.”87 Fanon recognized, though, that even by invoking

such values, “we are not so naïve as to think that this will come about with the

cooperation and the good will of the European governments.”88 Instead, the denial of

rights required struggle, whether violent struggle, as Fanon advocated, or nonviolent

struggle, as for many of the movements this thesis addresses. As Memmi noted, the

exclusion of the colonized from universal values depends on the precarious necessity

“that this order not be questioned by others, and especially not by the colonized.”89 The

colonized did not let Churchill’s order go unquestioned.

Benjamin Gregg, a recent theorist of rights claims, valorizes this state of affairs.

He argues that simply to receive rights as pliant and passive subjects reduces those rights

to “gratuitous grants from the powerful,” depriving “their recipients of autonomy and

equality.”90 Instead of seeing themselves as “supernumeraries,” unintended

consequences of universalist language, rights claimants should “self-regard as someone

denied recognition” of an already-possessed right.91 Sartre understood the need for such

87 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 314. 88 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 106. 89 Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, 76. 90 Gregg, “Individuals as Authors of Human Rights,” 636. 91 Gregg, “Individuals as Authors of Human Rights,” 637.

25

self-assertion, arguing that Europeans could never “grant” colonized people

“independence.” Instead, “each of them [the colonized] has every right, and the right to

everything.”92 The onus for rethinking, then, shifted to the denier of the right – such as

Churchill, seeking to restrict his own universalist language.

The universalist language of the Atlantic Charter invited the colonized to place

themselves within it and hence to question their exclusion.93 After all, “the high-toned

abstractions in the Atlantic Charter” only called attention to the “internal contradictions

and hypocrisies within the democracies themselves,” such as the denial of rights to

colonial territories.94 Recent historians have registered the importance of the Atlantic

Charter not for the fact that it, or its Euro-American authors, beneficently granted

something to the colonized. Rather, the Charter and the controversy around it served a

catalytic purpose, prompting discussion of universal rights.95 Churchill’s defiance did

not deny activists the ability to articulate their claims using rights-talk.

As Andreas Eckert and Ibhawoh’s analyses of Nigeria seem to show, European

rejection of rights claims prompted a reaction against the legitimacy of empire. Fanon

preferred that reaction to come in violent guerrilla uprisings, but even using nonviolent

methods anticolonial movements could reject the assimilationism promised by the

Atlantic Charter. As Sartre prophesied, “the excluded…will affirm their exclusivity in

national selfhood,” and the colonizer’s exclusion would create “the patriotism of the

92 Sartre, “Preface,” 27. 93 Cf. Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, 92; Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History

(New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), 147ff. establishes a paradigm for this sort of “cascading” rights

thinking. 94 Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World, 8. 95 Andreas Eckert, “African Nationalists and Human Rights, 1940s-1970s,” in Human Rights in the

Twentieth Century, ed. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 155

and 157.

26

colonized.”96 This vision fits into Anderson’s model of nationalist imagination, whereby

rejected colonial elites imagined new communities to accept them.97

Churchill’s denial also invited another sort of comparison for the Atlantic

Charter: the parallels between Nazi domination of Europe and Allied empires’

domination of their overseas colonies. Churchill indicated that the Charter “had in mind,

primarily, the restoration of the sovereignty, self-government and national life of the

States and nations of Europe now under the Nazi yoke.”98 Churchill’s limit qualified that

the Charter only applied to Europe, but also that it only applied to Europe under Nazism.

Hence, the Charter’s applicability hinged on the style of rule as well as geography.

Anticolonial writers have forwarded the comparability between overseas colonialism

and Nazi rule in order to more fully expose the hypocrisy of Churchill’s limitation.

Within the postwar Francophone anticolonial canon, Césaire made the most

forceful connection between the evils of Nazism, which the victorious Allies vilified,

and the evils of colonialism, which those same Allies celebrated and fought to protect.

Césaire noted that Nazism finds its roots in the application of authoritarian, extractive,

and racist methods toward “non-European peoples” through overseas colonialism.99

Fanon and Memmi made the same equation, presenting colonialism as nothing but

fascism in a non-European country.100 Sartre drew the link rather flippantly, posing

96 Sartre, “Introduction,” xxviii. 97 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 57. 98 374 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1941) 68-69.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/09/war-situation (accessed March 8, 2013). 99 Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 36. 100 Résistance Algérienne no. 4 (March 28, 1957), cited in Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 90, 101 (the

point is also powerfully made by Keita Fodoba’s poem “African Dawn,” reprinted on pp. 227-231). Cf.

also Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, 63.

27

“colonialism over there, fascism here: one and the same thing.”101 For these authors,

Western outrage against Nazism came not from its methods but from its application.

Churchill’s limitation of the Atlantic Charter to Europe certainly fit into this paradigm.

Hence, Césaire showed that Europeans’ outrage directed itself not toward

Nazism itself, but rather “the fact that [Hitler] applied to Europe colonialist procedures

which until then had been reserved exclusively” for the “darker peoples” of the world.102

Europeans applied the rule of colonial difference to their moral and legal condemnation

of Nazism, by approving of its application in the non-Western world but rejecting its

application in Europe. Sartre developed the theme further in a 1958 comparison of

French reactions to white Europeans’ victimization by Nazis in 1943 and to the

victimization of Algerians in 1958. Whereas in 1943, Frenchmen cried out, in 1958

“nobody talks about it.”103 Sartre pointed out the antimony that colonialism sends

“democratic Frenchmen to their deaths to protect the tyranny that the anti-democratic

colonialists exert,” obliging them “to fight…for the Nazi principles that we fought

against ten years ago.”104 Césaire saw similar inconsistency in Europe’s vocal

condemnation of Hitler’s violence against European victims, but silence on Nazi-like

methods applied to “Algiers, Morocco, and other places” of contemporary colonial

violence.105 Sartre also contrasted how Europeans “have seen children die like rats in the

bombing raids or in Nazi concentration camps,” but when presented with “a splendid

backdrop of red earth and palm trees,” that is, a colonial, tropical background, “we look

101 Jean-Paul Sartre, Colonialism and Neocolonialism, trans. Azzedine Haddour, Steve Brewer, and Terry

McWilliams (New York: Routledge, 2006), 149. 102 Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 36. 103 Sartre, Colonialism and Neocolonialism, 75. 104 Sartre, Colonialism and Neocolonialism, 53 and 54. 105 Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 70.

28

away with a guilty conscience” when shown images of similar horror.106 Césaire and

Sartre showed that Westerners, specifically Frenchmen, hypocritically condemned the

Nazi repression while celebrating the same repression of colonized peoples.

As the case studies will show, contemporaries of the 1940s drew the same

parallel. I have developed the line of thinking here simply to show that their analyses

agree with the more famous theorists of the 1950s. Recent historians and analysts have

drawn the comparison, too. Venkataramani, with a touch of polemic, noted that for

comparing occupations, “Winston Churchill governed more alien millions the world

over than Adolf Hitler did at the zenith of his power.”107 James Blaut, too, equated the

aggression of European colonial conquests with Nazi aggression.108 Less

confrontationally, Cmiel took historians to task for failing to analyze the “sorts of

violence colonial rulers perpetrated on native populations in the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries” in the same way as other violent episodes. He urged historians to broaden

their horizons from “images of state violence derived from Hitler's Germany or Stalin's

Soviet Union.”109 That is, historians have recognized the violence and oppression in

totalitarian systems with Europeans as their subjects, but have devoted much less

attention to the violence and oppression directed against non-Westerners.

Mark Mazower has drawn Césaire’s parallel directly. His recent Hitler’s Empire

acknowledges that “the Nazis planned to dominate Europe…much as the British ran

106 Sartre, Colonialism and Neocolonialism, 30. 107 Venkataramani, “The United States, the Colonial Issue, and the Atlantic Charter Hoax,” 3–4. 108 James M. Blaut, The National Question: Decolonizing the History of Nationalism (Atlantic Highlands,

NJ: Zed Books, 1987), 36–37. 109 Cmiel, “The Recent History of Human Rights,” 134.

29

Asia or Africa.”110 The Nazi empire drew on the experience of personnel, but more so

from ideas and institutions, from the Wilhelmine German overseas empire and other

European empires. Thus, “forced labour and many of the other impositions that shocked

Europeans when they were subjected to them by the Germans” were commonplace in

colonies, as in the French forced labor code, the indigénat.111 Likewise, when Hitler

declared “the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia in March 1939, the Germans imported

the colonial model for imagining ties between advanced and backward peoples.”112

Mussolini perceived the nature of Hitler’s “New Order” for Europe as colonial, even as

his ego chafed at playing second fiddle.113

Therein lies one difference between the Nazi empire and other contemporary

colonialisms. Other empires disguised their domination in the rhetoric of civilization, or

liberation, or something other than pure domination, which could then at least be

recognized as hypocrisy. Hitler’s Japanese allies repeatedly urged him to follow their

own model, which positioned Japan as the liberator of the colonized peoples of Asia.

Likewise, Mussolini and Hitler’s own Foreign Ministry urged him to offer some counter

to the Atlantic Charter, but Hitler had no time or patience for such “superfluous

declarations.”114 Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere proved just as

hypocritical as Churchill’s Atlantic Charter, but it provided at least a rhetorical refuge

for Japan’s collaborators.

110 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 3. 111 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 584. 112 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 587. 113 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 586. 114 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 588–590, 320–326.

30

For all its deficiencies, then, the Atlantic Charter provided some standard against

which colonized subjects could appeal. Moreover, by discrediting Nazism and

proclaiming self-determination as a goal, the Allies opened themselves to be discredited

to the extent their colonial methods replicated Nazi oppression and racism.115 If

anything, the appearance of the Atlantic Charter only served to highlight what Fanon

called the “contradictions inherent in the colonial system.”116 Césaire saw Hitler as

useful in this sense, since he “makes it possible to see things,” such as racism or

colonialism, “on a large scale.”117 Or a “white scale,” as the case might be. As this thesis

will show, anticolonial activists certainly recognized the possibilities to utilize Allied

hypocrisy and the Nazi comparison to further their own causes.

This thesis, then, concerns how anticolonial activists mobilized that rhetoric to

further their causes. The emphasis will remain on the agency of anticolonialists, and not

on Europeans and Americans granting something to the passive colonized. Fanon

recognized how activists could be stimulated, not controlled, by “international events”

which could “strengthen and uphold the native’s combativity while promoting and

giving support to national consciousness.”118 We can move Fanon’s Cold War media

strategy back into the 1940s, too, whereby each colonial incident “reverberates in the

international arena” by mobilizing the opposing camps’ (whether Allied/Axis, or

capitalist/communist) ideologically-driven arguments.119 For example, anticolonial

activists could expose the British government to embarrassment by highlighting the

115 Frank Füredi, The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race (New Brunswick, NJ:

Rutgers University Press, 1998), 165, 182. 116 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 238. 117 Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 37. 118 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 238. 119 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 75–76.

31

failure to fulfill the Atlantic Charter. The Nazis, like the Soviets later, could then point

to this hypocrisy to undermine British or U.S. legitimacy. In all of this, “the colonized

people are very well aware of these imperatives which rule international life” and

anticolonial activists had been prepared “to understand and grasp the situation,” and

hence manipulate it.120

Resistance by appropriation does not imply dependence on the particular source

of the citation. In discussing Marxist rhetoric, Robert Young argues that anticolonialists

participated in “a syncretic transformation of available radical discourses.”121 The

insight proves equally applicable to Atlantic Charter rights-talk and helps avoid what

some have identified as a dangerous complacency in transnational and global history

with “a view of the world that begins in Washington or London and works its way

outward and…that places the emphasis purely on the derivation of ideas and institutions

from the dominant western powers.”122 James Blaut has railed against this Eurocentric

diffusionist model, in which Europe “innovates, Outside imitates,” and the non-

European part of the world “progresses…by the diffusion (or spread) of innovative,

progressive ideas from Europe, which flow into it as air flows into a vacuum.”123 This

thesis can fall into this model if it constructs the Charter as an inherently liberating

artifact. In this construction, Europe and America create the Atlantic Charter, which then

diffuses out from the center where it provides the impetus for anticolonialism. This view

120 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 80–81. 121 Young, “Sartre: The ‘African Philosopher,’” xxv. 122 Hilton and Mitter, “Introduction,” 15. 123 J.M. Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History

(New York: The Guilford Press, 1993), 16 and 98.

32

de-emphasizes the role that activists play in driving anticolonial movements, rendering

them reactive to Euro-American initiatives rather than active agents.

This thesis will thus contextualize anticolonial Atlantic Charter rhetoric within

longer, pre-existing anticolonial movements in order to avoid this Eurocentric

temptation. This thesis will not posit that the Atlantic Charter itself generated an

anticolonial moment. Instead, it will detail how anticolonialists adopted and adapted the

Charter to fit their purposes. In this sense Atlantic Charter rights-talk parallels

nationalism, which “became ‘modular,’ capable of being transplanted, with varying

degrees of self-consciousness, to a great variety of social terrains, to merge and be

merged with a correspondingly wide variety of political and ideological

constellations.”124 Or, as Blaut has characterized in a non-diffusionistic view of

nationalism, such Charter-talk reflects a strategy adopted, not an innovation received.125

At the outset, I need to acknowledge limitations. As Loomba’s review of

postcolonial scholarship reminds us, “anti-colonial movements have rarely represented

the interests of all the peoples of a colonised country.”126 After all, “anti-colonial

nationalism can only be taken as representative of the subaltern voice” if we define

“subalternity” simply as being below someone else and restrict subaltern voices to their

appropriation by elites as “the people.”127 This thesis will largely neglect the voices of

women and the poor in favor of those whose voices registered in local as well as global

centers of power. This neglect is due to the limits of time and language ability on the

part of the researcher, rather than intent. Exploring in greater depth how subalterns

124 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 4; cf. 45 and 67. 125 Blaut, The National Question, 83. 126 Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 16. 127 Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 196.

33

interacted with, or did not interact with, the Atlantic Charter needs to be done.

Unfortunately, this study will only deal with the relatively subaltern non-Western elites

leading anticolonial movements.

As Churchill’s dismissal showed, some certainly saw these leaders as subaltern.

Yet they could mobilize the documents of the colonizer against empire. The

promulgation of a document like the Atlantic Charter might not have been intended for

the colonized peoples of the world, but they could use it. This thesis will detail that use

in three colonies, and then seek to draw out comparisons and generalities.

***

This introduction has framed the Atlantic Charter in light of critiques from 1950s

anticolonial theorists. Their contributions show that the Charter could be used as an

anticolonial tool by activists, particularly in the international environment of the Second

World War. The ideological combat between Nazism or fascism on the one hand and the

democratic idealism encapsulated in the Atlantic Charter opened up a space for

anticolonial activists to insert their own critiques. They could argue for the application

of the universal values proclaimed in the Charter, and highlight hypocrisy when their

colonial interlocutors refused to apply them.

Building on this theoretical foundation, this thesis will examine anticolonialists’

use of the Atlantic Charter in India, Syria, and the Philippines. Due to the greater

volume of material and the unique circumstances of the case, the Indian case study will

restrict its focus to 1941. Indians strongly responded to the Charter upon its appearance

and to Churchill’s denial in 1941, but afterwards attention faded in India due to the

acceleration of other developments, such as the Cripps Mission, the Quit India

34

movement, and the Bengal Famine. Therefore, the chapter will restrict its focus to 1941,

the time of greatest Atlantic Charter discourse in India. By contrast, the chapters on

Syria and the Philippines will situate the political environments in August 1941, but

focus on the later war years. In Syria, use of the Charter continued throughout the war,

whereas in the Philippines use occurred mostly in 1942-1943. Each chapter will focus

when the Charter was most used, demonstrating the incredible diversity with which

anticolonial activists used the Charter as a rhetorical tool.

These case studies will demonstrate the flexibility and diversity of Atlantic

Charter-talk. In India, Syria, and the Philippines, the Charter entered complex political

situations where anticolonial audiences appropriated it in complex ways. The conclusion

will highlight the differences and similarities of the Charter’s reception, and then go on

to place the Charter within broader historiographical narratives. The conclusion will

address the Charter’s transnational use by activists from each country, and how the

Charter continued to live on for actors beyond the war.

This thesis will indicate the true intricateness of transnational and global

processes. While Churchill amalgamated his audience into the monolithic, faceless

“broad, toiling masses in all the continents,” we can see that all these masses were rather

different in all those continents. They shared a source material, which Roosevelt and

Churchill produced, but they made that material meaningful in their own ways.

35

Chapter Two

“Write it in Water”1: The Atlantic Charter in India

In India, the Atlantic Charter entered a complex and tense political situation.

From the beginning, India’s part in the Second World War had been contested, and

British proposals had linked that participation to postwar promises. Those promises, in

turn, became linked to the Atlantic Charter after Churchill’s fateful September 9 speech.

That speech, more than the Atlantic Charter, electrified the Indian political scene. The

Atlantic Charter did not, in and of itself, generate any specific political movement.

However, it became integrated into ongoing political battles between Indian nationalists

and the British government. Moreover, the Atlantic Charter had drawn the U.S.

government into association with British colonial policies at the same time that a new

bilateral U.S.-Indian diplomatic relationship opened. Therefore, Indian independence

activists had new access to U.S. policymakers, whom they could pressure by citing the

U.S.-authored Atlantic Charter and drawing upon traditional U.S. anticolonialism.

India before the Atlantic Charter

The Government of India (GOI) had entered into the Second World War on

September 3, 1939, when the British Viceroy, the Marquess of Linlithgow, unilaterally

joined the United Kingdom’s September 1 declaration of war on Germany.2 The Viceroy

did not consult Indian leaders and his unilateral declaration enraged nationalists. After

1 Rao Saheb Sivaraj, quoted in “Central Legislative Assembly Approves Resolution Recommending

Application of Atlantic Charter to India, 12 November 1941,” in Amit K. Gupta and Arjun Dev, eds.,

Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1941 Part 1 (New Delhi:

Oxford University Press, for the Indian Council of Historical Research, 2010), 72–73. 2 “Viceroy’s Call to India,” The Times, September 4, 1939; “Patriotic Response in India,” The Times,

September 5, 1939.

36

some debate, by October 1939 the foremost nationalist party, the Indian National

Congress (hereafter, “Congress”), had decided to withdraw from participation in the

governing councils of seven provinces. In part, this decision reflected a desire to keep the

Congress unified, since Congress participation in the post-1937 governments of the

provinces had fulfilled British hopes. The British Government of India Act of 1935 had

intended to co-opt Congress leaders and to divide them. By granting “responsible

government” at the provincial but not all-India levels, the British aimed to undermine the

all-India cause. As the Congress’s symbolic and sometimes-official leader, Mohandas K.

Gandhi, put it, the withdrawal “covered the fact that we [the Congress] were crumbling to

pieces.”3

The withdrawal also strengthened the hand of the GOI, since the Muslim League

and GOI-appointed governments filled the vacuum produced by the Congress’s

withdrawal. Except for the Muslim-majority provinces where the Muslim League took

control, Indian nationalist movements’ influence waned after Congress’s resignation.

This decline reflected the broader trend in which the war “had the effect of reinforcing

the imperial presence, strengthening the colonial government’s control over public life

and temporarily halting moves to devolve power through constitutional change.”4

Moreover, the vast expansion of the Indian Army to fight in what Congress depicted as

Britain’s war undercut arguments about the need to resist British imperialism, as Indians,

at least of certain regions, willingly entered into the service of the British Empire.5

3 Gandhi, quoted in Robin Jeffrey, “India: Independence and the Rich Peasant,” in Asia - The Winning of

Independence, ed. Robin Jeffrey (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 94. 4 Ian Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917-1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1997), 183. 5 Indians fought in the Horn of Africa and western Europe in 1940, and then in North Africa and the Middle

East in 1940-41. Cf. Byron Farwell, Armies of the Raj: From the Mutiny to Independence, 1858-1947 (New

37

With the defeat of France in the summer of 1940, securing the cooperation of the

Congress appeared more urgent for the British war effort. On August 7, 1940, Linlithgow

issued his “August Offer,” reiterating the British intention to elevate India to dominion

status in the future, expanding the number of Indians appointed to the Viceroy’s

Executive Council, establishing a War Advisory Council, and promising to convene a

representative Constituent Assembly “with the lease possible delay” after the war.

However, the August Offer insisted that any constitutional reform for India toward

Dominion status (self-government within the British Empire) wait until the end of the

war and include a minority policy satisfying the British Government.6 In short, the Offer

contained little that Congress had not already rejected and inserted new conditions upon

Indian nationalists, namely the need for internal Indian consensus and appeasement of

British views on the minorities. Since the Muslim League adopted a formal demand for a

separate Muslim state (Pakistan) in March 1940, the League’s demands appeared

incompatible with Congress’s insistence on an all-India federation.7 The British seemed

to have set the bar impossibly high to ensure that Indians would never reach their

conditions for independence.

Protesting against the paltry offering in August 1940, Gandhi initiated a non-

cooperation campaign, his first since the 1931-32 movement which had extracted the

initial British promise of future Dominion status. In October 1940, Gandhi inaugurated an

“individual satyagraha” (the Gandhian term for non-violent action) against British rule in

York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989), 307–308, 311–312; Stephen P. Cohen, The Indian Army: Its

Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 139. 6 Announced by Amery in the Commons: 364 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1940) 404-405.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1940/aug/08/india-constitution (accessed April 12, 2013). 7 Cf. Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (New

York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 50–66; Farzana Shaikh, Community and Consensus in Islam:

Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860-1947 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 211–

212.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1940/aug/08/india-constitution

38

India and the war effort, “requiring individual Congressmen to make anti-war speeches

and undergo arrest,” daring the GOI to uphold freedom of speech and assembly. Under

Defense of India Rules adopted in 1939, the GOI simply arrested, imprisoned, and tried

numerous speakers, including Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru. Rather than forcing the

GOI to engage in a debate with Congress on modifying British policies, the GOI ignored

Congress’s demands and kept Congressmen from organizing themselves, rendering the

movement largely ineffective in its direct action objectives.8

The 1940-41 individual satyagraha campaign did, however, captivate the U.S.

audience via newsreels and press coverage. In a February 24, 1941, floor debate, U.S.

Senator Robert Reynolds charged “Britain with ‘imperialist exploitation’” and “referred

to India as a ‘subject nation, probably against the will of a majority of its people, and

certainly against the will of the followers of Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest single man in

India.’”9 In fact, in the years before the Second World War, Indian leaders had seen the

United States as a potential ally in the fight for independence, although their criticism of

U.S. failures to pressure Britain and U.S. racial discrimination often offended potential

U.S. supporters.10

Throughout 1941, as U.S. aid to Britain increased after the fall of France, U.S.

diplomatic interest in India also increased. With higher levels of U.S. Lend-Lease aid

going to the United Kingdom, the GOI sought its own agent in the British embassy in

Washington to manage U.S. wartime aid for British India. In the course of Anglo-

8 Jeffrey, “India: Independence and the Rich Peasant,” 94. 9 Reynolds, quoted in Eric S. Rubin, “America, Britain, and Swaraj: Anglo-American Relations and Indian

Independence, 1939-1945,” India Review 10, no. 1 (March 2011): 45. Reynolds served as senator from

North Carolina. 10 Sarah Ellen Graham, “American Propaganda, the Anglo-American Alliance, and the ‘Delicate Question’

of Indian Self-Determination,” Diplomatic History 33, no. 2 (2009): 227–228.

39

American consultations in London earlier in 1941, the desirability of direct U.S.-GOI

contact impressed all parties.11 U.S. diplomats saw the British request for GOI

representation in Washington as an opportunity to send a U.S. representation to New

Delhi. British officials wished to reinforce Britain as the seat of Indian sovereignty and

officials “were anxious not to allow any suggestion of Indian sovereignty to be

expressed.”12 Recognizing U.S. leverage over the United Kingdom in the form of Lend-

Lease aid, the British allowed the establishment of bilateral U.S.-Indian ties. A joint press

release of July 21, 1941, announced that the United States and India would exchange

“agent-generals.”13

Despite the need to appease U.S. interests in order to secure aid, the exchange of

ministers could threaten British power in New Delhi. Ex-Congress president Subhas

Chandra Bose recognized the impact of a U.S. presence in India, warning German

Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop that “with a new American Minister and an American

Military Attaché in India, America will also have a new role in the internal politics of

India.”14 The Times of London, too, noted the great importance of Thomas Wilson’s

arrival in Delhi on November 21, though it chose to downplay any potential U.S.

influence on British Indian policy. Instead, the Times hailed his arrival as signifying “the

11 Previously, the extent of U.S.-GOI contact consisted of six British diplomats at an India Desk in the

Washington Embassy. Graham, “American Propaganda,” 230; Rubin, “America, Britain, and Swaraj,” 51–

52. 12 Rubin, “America, Britain, and Swaraj,” 52. 13 “Press Release Issued by the Department of State, July 21, 1941,” in Foreign Relations of the United

States: Diplomatic Papers, 1941, vol. 3, The British Commonwealth; The Near East and Africa

(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1959), 174. [Hereafter referred to as FRUS

1941 with volume number and page number; same for future years of FRUS.] The United Kingdom

designated Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai, a rare Indian member of the Indian Civil Service, as its Washington

representative, and the United States announced Thomas Wilson, a veteran diplomat posted at the Calcutta

consulate, as its representative in New Delhi. 14 “Subhas Bose’s Letter to von Ribbentrop, German Foreign Minister, 15 August 1941,” in Gupta and

Dev, Towards Freedom, 183. By 1941, Bose had escaped from British custody and found his way to

Berlin, where he offered support to the Axis Powers in order to end British rule in India.

40

cooperative policies that are now being fostered between the two countries.”15 As Bose

observed, however, the presence of a U.S. envoy at the center of GOI power created a

possible locus of influence.

The announcement of the Atlantic Charter provided Indians with an opportunity

to present their own struggle to a U.S. audience, since the Charter had explicitly linked

U.S. and British long-term policy goals. With this background, Indian responses to and

appropriations of the Atlantic Charter become more important as the first American

episode in the broader story of how Indian nationalists internationalized their dispute with

the British government and the GOI.

Indian Responses to the Atlantic Charter

Upon its publication on August 14, 1941, the Atlantic Charter received mixed

reviews in India. One of the most intriguing responses came from Gandhi himself, who

focused upon the Charter’s relation to his own theory of non-violence. Asked about the

declaration, Gandhi answered that he would congratulate the United States and Britain

when they “resort to disarmament, and call it the triumph of non-violence.”16 As was to

be expected, Gandhi attempted to shift the discourse about the Atlantic Charter from its

ostensible anticolonialism toward satyagraha. That is, Gandhi highlighted the eighth

clause of the Charter, on disarmament, rather than the third point on self-determination.17

15 “First U.S. Envoy to India,” The Times, November 22, 1941. 16 “Interview to United Press of India,” from The Hindu (August 19, 1941), in The Collected Works of

Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book) (New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India, 1999) vol. 80

(28 December, 1940 – 17 August, 1941):468, available at http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/cwmg.html

(accessed March 8, 2013). [Hereafter referred to as CWMG with volume number and page number.] 17 The eighth point included the following stricture: “Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or

air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of

their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general

security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other

41

In an interview in November, H.V. Kamath asked Gandhi if the Atlantic Charter foretold

“the emergence of a non-violent world order,” but Gandhi denied that the Atlantic

Charter could bring about such “a non-violent new world order of my conception.”18

With this curt reply, Gandhi indicated his relative disinterest in the Atlantic Charter

except as a symptom of growing pressure on the British, which had forced them to seek

U.S. aid.19 He told Kamath “the main fact that the struggle is going on constitutes

sufficient moral pressure, so much so that the British Government’s position in America

does not appear to be quite comfortable.”20 Since Gandhi’s political goals went beyond

merely setting up a postcolonial India, he read the Atlantic Charter through a different

lens from most Indian nationalists. For Gandhi’s purposes, the Atlantic Charter had little

use and little appeal, except as a symptom of what he saw as his own movement’s

success.

Unlike Gandhi, most Indian nationalists “warmly welcomed” the third clause of

the Atlantic Charter.21 The Bombay Chronicle of August 27 described “the universal

feeling in India” that Churchill should explicitly identify the Atlantic Charter’s promises

with India. In fact, the Chronicle criticized All-India Radio for neglecting to report the

Indian demand that “if…the principle of self-determination was accepted by the British

Government,” “it should be made clear that it would apply equally to India.” The

practicable measure which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.” Cf.

“Atlantic Charter.” 18 “Interview to H.V. Kamath” (from November 5, 1941 edition of The Hindu), CWMG 81:60. 19 Noted by Moyn, “Imperialism, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Human Rights,” 164. 20 “Interview to H.V. Kamath,” CWMG 81:61. 21 R. Coupland, “Indian Politics, 1936-1942,” in The Indian Problem: Report on the Constitutional

Problem in India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1944), 260; V.P. Menon, The Transfer of Power in

India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), 110–111: “The [Atlantic] Charter was greeted with

great enthusiasm by the subject countries of the world, including India.” Cf. also “How Far the

Fundamental Principles Apply to India, Sir Tej Bahadur’s Statement” (Amrita Bazar Patrika, 3 November

1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 69: the moderate Non-Party Congress “noticed with

satisfaction” the third point in the Atlantic Charter.

42

Chronicle claimed that “every Indian paper” was voicing this demand.22 On September 5,

the same newspaper called on Churchill to tell India “what precisely the Anglo-American

Agreement meant to her.”23 For the Indian nationalists, the Atlantic Charter had the

potential to create a British commitment to their independence.

Whereas Indians reacted to the Charter with a cautious optimism about its

anticolonial language, some in the United States expressed skepticism about the Charter,

questioning how the arch-imperialist Churchill could commit Britain to the document’s

anticolonial clause. In the United States, critiques and comments on the Atlantic Charter

centered on apparent British hypocrisy regarding India. Senator Reynolds, who had

raised the issue of British rule in India amid Lend-Lease debates earlier in 1941, asked

“Why don’t Great Britain and the United States start imposing the four freedoms on

India…right away?”24 Observers saw India as a prime example of the contradiction

between the Atlantic Charter as rhetoric and actual Anglo-American policy, undermining

the credibility of the document and its authors.25

The discrepancy between reality and rhetoric provided an opening for critics of

the Anglo-American alliance, both domestic and foreign. U.S. anti-interventionists

quickly capitalized on the apparent discrepancy between the Atlantic Charter’s rhetoric

and British imperial realities to criticize Roosevelt for his closeness to Churchill. John T.

Flynn of the anti-interventionist America First Committee cast doubt on Roosevelt’s

22 “Newspaper Report on Immediate Issues” (Bombay Chronicle, 27 August 1941), in Gupta and Dev,

Towards Freedom, 48. 23 “India and the War” (Bombay Chronicle, 5 September 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 142. 24 “Pronouncement Met With Support and Criticism at Nation’s Capital,” Los Angeles Times, August 15,

1941. 25 Part of the U.S. critique came from the disillusionment produced by Wilson’s Fourteen Points, and their

obvious numerical and topical parallels to the Eight Points of the Atlantic Charter. The Rev. A.J. Muste,

secretary of the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, made this skeptical observation (“Wide Acclaim,” 4),

while the August 25 Life noted the parallel before rejecting it (“Roosevelt and Churchill Meet at Sea and

Draft a Long-term Program for the post-Nazi World,” Life, August 25, 1941, 27).

43

sincerity due to the Charter’s incompatibility with imperialist realities: “All of their

words about all the peoples in the world naming their own kind of government is

meaningless unless it applies to such countries as India” and several other Asian colonies

in addition to the Baltic States.26 Flynn presented India as the most glaring contradiction

to the self-determination clause of the Atlantic Charter. Another America First speaker,

former West Virginia Senator Henry Holt, took a similar line in a September speech in

Los Angeles. Holt contested “the warmongers[’]” claim that this was a war for

democracy with a rhetorical question: “The kind of democracy England dished out in

India?”27

Axis criticism of the Charter paralleled the U.S. anti-interventionist critique. On

August 16, Virginio Gayda, editor of an important Fascist paper, countered the Charter

point by point, asking mockingly, “as to territorial changes not in accord with the freely

expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, why are the British ‘occupying’ Palestine,

Iraq, Egypt and India…?”28 As the American-Japanese relationship deteriorated later in

1941, the Japanese press took up the same charge, with the Tokyo paper Asahi ridiculing

“the Roosevelt contention that he is fighting for democracy and emancipation of races”

based on the U.S. alliance with Britain, which “enslaved the races of India, Malay, and

Africa.”29 T.A. Raman, Gandhi’s former secretary and a correspondent for the London-

based United Press, tried to answer these criticisms by insisting on India’s anti-Nazi

26 John T. Flynn, quoted in “Wide Acclaim.” 27 Henry Holt, quoted in “Holt Opposes Aid to Britain: Former Senator Says He’s Against All Isms in

Address Here,” Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1941. 28 “Anglo-American Declaration May Prolong War, Says Gayda,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1941;

“Gayda’s Eight Points,” New York Times, August 17, 1941. 29 “F. D. R. Wants to Be War Dictator, Says Tokio Paper,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 17, 1941.

44

unity, but he made no reference to the Atlantic Charter.30 As U.S.-based Indian expatriate

Krishnalal Shridharani observed in 1942, the charges of inconsistency carried weight

since “they were true and palatable to Asians who had been saying the same thing to

themselves.”31 Rather than dispel those feelings, Winston Churchill’s entry into the

debate only confirmed them and intensified Indian anger.

The Response to Churchill’s September 9 Statement

As in the United States, in Britain observers saw India as a proof-test for the

Atlantic Charter’s universality. Therefore, when Churchill spoke in Parliament on

September 9, he responded to direct inquiries as to whether the Charter applied to India.

William Dobbie, member for Rotherham, asked Churchill directly whether “he is now in

a position to make a clear statement extending the principles of Clause 3 of the

Declaration to India?” Churchill deferred to a later statement on the War Situation,

wherein he would address the Atlantic Charter’s purview, and repeated this response

when Dobbie further pressed, “In that statement does the right hon. Gentleman

[Churchill] intend to make reference to India?”32 Churchill positioned his speech to

represent the definitive government statement on the Atlantic Charter and India.

Churchill’s statement disqualified the Charter’s applicability to India.

Specifically, he referred back to the August Offer of 1940 as a promise predating and

superseding the Charter. Referring to the August Offer, as well as a similar promise made

30 “Unity of India in War Effort Told by Speaker,” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1941; “India Seeking

Axis Defeat,” Los Angeles Times, August 21, 1941. 31 Krishnalal Shridharani, Warning to the West (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942), 200. 32 374 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1941) 29.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/09/atlantic-charter-india (accessed March 9,

2013).

45

for Burma, Churchill claimed that the government’s statements were “complete in

themselves, free from ambiguity and related to the conditions and circumstances of the

territories and peoples affected.” Though Churchill insisted these statements superseded

the Atlantic Charter, he did voice his feeling that “they will be found to be entirely in

harmony with the high conception of freedom and justice which inspired the [Atlantic

Charter].”33 Churchill thus claimed that the British government’s existing policies already

fulfilled the conditions of self-determination laid out in the Charter. Churchill ingeniously

evaded the question about divergences between the Charter’s rhetoric and actual British

imperial policy. However, the August Offer had not satisfied Indian nationalists, so

Churchill’s explanation failed to satisfy them either, and instead aroused intense anger.

As Tory minister (and future PM) Harold Macmillan observed candidly, “I do not think

the P.M. can have realized the true nakedness of the land when he made the statement.”

British declarations were “not complete in themselves, nor [were] they free from

ambiguity.”34 Hence, Churchill had opened himself to a counterattack.

The earliest responses to Churchill’s statement proved tepid at best. On

September 10, a Liberal Party council meeting in London saw Lord Meston insist that “I

do not think there is the slightest doubt that the [Atlantic] charter is of universal

application, and if India is left out it would be futile.” Meston tacitly rebuked Churchill’s

claim that the Charter did not apply to India.35 Meston’s statement moreover called into

question the credibility of the Anglo-American alliance, insisting that if the Charter did

not apply fully to India, the Charter would have no validity at all. Likewise, when asked

33 374 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1941) 68-69.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/09/war-situation (accessed March 8, 2013). 34 Harold Macmillan, quoted in Richard Toye, Churchill’s Empire: The World That Made Him and the

World He Made (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2010), 215. 35 “F. D. R.-Churchill ‘Charter’ Faces British Storms,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 11, 1941.

46

about Churchill’s statement by The Hindu on September 11, Gandhi “declined to answer

any question,” insisting that “after all it is not words that matter” but rather action, and

Gandhi’s “action is before all India and, if you like, the whole world.”36 Gandhi herein

offered an unflattering comparison between his own action and British policy, claiming

that whereas his own actions plainly matched his rhetoric, British rule in India failed to

match its own rhetoric, such as the anticolonial clause of the Atlantic Charter. Churchill’s

qualification of the Atlantic Charter supported Gandhi’s claim that British declarations

were meaningless.

The pro-Indian Labour MP Reginald Sorensen offered the opening salvo in the

attack on Churchill’s statement during the September 11 sitting of the Commons, when

he questioned Secretary of State for India Leo Amery about the application of the Charter

to India. Rather than take Churchill’s statement as definitive, Sorensen seemed to reject

Churchill’s explanation when he asked Amery “whether he has considered the

implication of Point Three in the Eight-Point Charter…in relation to India,” and

particularly “whether, in view of that declaration, he intends to take any further steps to

implement the accepted principle” of self-determination. Sorensen pointed to “the very

great dismay with which [Churchill’s] statement was received throughout the

country…both here and in India” to challenge Amery’s deference to Churchill’s

statement, insisting that the statement applied self-determination for colonies “to other

countries and not to our own.” Sorensen attacked Amery’s conception of the Atlantic

Charter and echoed Indian rejection of the August Offer, insisting on a different

36 “Interview to ‘The Hindu’” (from September 12, 1941 edition of The Hindu), CWMG 81:80-81.

47

interpretation for the Atlantic Charter’s language on self-determination.37 In its October

23 meeting, the India League, a pro-Congress organ of which Sorensen was a member,

decided to press the same claim, petitioning Amery to reconsider the application of the

Atlantic Charter to India.38

Amery and the government’s answer echoed similar British rejections by

highlighting the internal disunity of India in order to justify delays in the transfer of

power negotiations. Amery remained firm, insisting that the August Offer from 1940 had

presented Indians with the possibility for self-government, and that the only remaining

barrier came from Indians themselves, given the disunity of the Indian political

movements.39 On May 7, Halifax had used the same argument to deflect U.S. pressure,

insisting that the British or the GOI could not negotiate with Indian nationalists due to the

Hindu-Muslim problem.40 In an August 1 memo to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, U.S.

Ambassador Winant identified this as the primary British argument, noting that “the

British have always emphasized the problem of minorities in India.”41 Thus, even when

critics pointed out the inconsistency of British colonial rule and the Atlantic Charter’s

anticolonialism, British policymakers could fall back on their longstanding argument

37 374 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1941) 286-287.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/11/atlantic-charter (accessed March 8, 2013) 38 “India League (UK) on the Atlantic Charter” (October 28, 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom,

66. 39 374 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1941) 286-287.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/11/atlantic-charter (accessed March 8, 2013). 40 “Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation with the British Ambassador (Halifax),” May

7, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:178. 41 Winant (Ambassador [hereafter A] UK) to Secretary, August 1, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:179. Hereafter,

correspondence in FRUS will list the sender by last name, abbreviated title, with ‘Secretary’ for ‘Secretary

of State,’ the usual addressee for foreign wires.

48

about a lack of Indian unity to disarm calls for an unfiltered application of self-

determination to India. 42

This parry by British policymakers did not stop criticism of Churchill’s statement.

Amery’s use of a familiar argument only reinforced perceptions that British policymakers

used Indian disunity as an excuse, moving the goalposts for Indian independence while

also actively undermining any Hindu-Muslim reconciliation. As Coupland put it in 1942,

the “explanation only served to inflame the suspicions it was intended to allay.”43 India’s

Tribune newspaper articulated an answer to Amery and Churchill on September 12,

wherein the comparison of the British withdrawal from Ireland, which failed to provide

for the “minority” problem of Protestants within the Irish Free State, provided a helpful

counterthrust.44 The Tribune called Amery’s technique a stalling tactic, “a flank attack”

by “diehards and reactionaries” to regain “the ground they have been forced to abandon

by the failure of their frontal attack,” namely the need to concede independence as an

imminent goal, if only after the war, in August 1940.45 The use of “diehard” apparently

referred directly to Churchill, who had led the “diehard” faction of the Conservatives

opposed to any devolution of power from Britain to Indians throughout the 1930s.46

42 Amery did so in a September 19 broadcast: “India’s War Effort: Mr. Amery on Sacrifice for Common

Cause,” The Times, September 19, 1941. Amery emphasized that “there was much political agitation in

India – even more between rival elements than against the existing Government.” Later in the issue, The

Times echoed the sentiment, noting that “the dispute is between Indians and Indians”: “The Future of

India,” The Times, September 19, 1941. Alfred Knox used the same argument in reply to a letter supporting

an immediate declaration about the future of India by Sir Francis Younghusband; Alfred Knox, “England

and India,” The Times, October 16, 1941. 43 Coupland, “Indian Politics, 1936-1942,” 261. 44 “Mr Churchill’s ‘No’” (The Tribune, 12 September 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 61 and

62. 45 “Mr Churchill’s ‘No,’” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 61. The Tribune noted that all British

pledges, from the Montagu Declaration to Lord Irwin (by 1941, Lord Halifax)’s promise of Dominion

status in 1931, had been “consolidated into one compendious pledge which whatever its [the August

Offer’s] other defects, and they are serious enough, has made the complete freedom and equality of India as

a member of the British Commonwealth the declared goal of Britain's policy.” 46 Darwin, The Empire Project, 446–448.

49

Notably absent from The Tribune’s response is any discussion of the Atlantic

Charter itself. Churchill’s statement on September 9, insisting that the August Offer of

1940 had fulfilled of the Atlantic Charter, had implicitly recognized that the Charter’s

third clause did apply to India. By recognizing that the Charter applied to India, Churchill

legitimized Indian nationalists’ use of the text.47 By centering his response to their

demands on the August Offer, Churchill instead turned the question back onto the

already-rejected August Offer. This allowed Indian nationalists to focus the debate on

whether the August Offer had fulfilled the accepted principle of self-determination. They

turned to this debate with vigor. Nationalists already had an ally in the metropole in the

person of V. K. Krishna Menon, head of the pro-Congress India League in Britain, who

worked “on a pamphlet dealing with the Atlantic Charter which will be used for

campaign purposes” in Britain itself.48 Menon sought to capitalize on public sympathy

for the Indian position after Churchill’s statement.49

The August Offer had announced Indian independence as the ultimate British

objective, but Indian nationalists argued that actual British policy contradicted this

rhetoric. Hence, they could criticize British policy as hypocritical. When Churchill placed

the Atlantic Charter within the framework of the August Offer, he inadvertently invited

unflattering observations about the discrepancy between British rhetoric (the Atlantic

Charter’s avowal of self-determination and the August Offer’s promise of self-

government) and actual policy (continued British domination of the GOI and obstruction

on the minority question). Since Churchill allowed Indian nationalists to assume the

47 Borgwardt, “When You State a Moral Principle, You Are Stuck with It,” 528, 533. As Borgwardt puts it,

“to many of its contemporary consumers, the language of the Atlantic Charter spoke for itself” (p. 528). 48 “On the Present Position of the India League, 5 November 1941,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom,

574. 49 “India League (UK) on the Atlantic Charter,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 66.

50

Atlantic Charter did apply to them, they could present their view of how the Atlantic

Charter ought to apply to India. The Atlantic Charter in and of itself had exited the

discursive field, leaving only potential criticisms of British policy, which failed to live up

to Indian nationalists’ views of how the Charter would apply to them. From September

1941, the debate would center on different Indian ideas about how the Charter should

apply to India, most of which differed with the already-rejected August Offer, leaving

only criticism of British policy and alternative visions of how to proceed from colony to

post-colony.

Moreover, Churchill left the impression among Indians that the Atlantic Charter

did not truly apply to them at all, mobilizing and crystallizing anger against British rule.

As The Tribune noted, Churchill had only played into nationalists’ hands, observing the

irony that “the only possible effect” of Churchill’s statements “is to make the party of

freedom redouble their efforts,” and in that, “he has unconsciously rendered a service of

great value to India.”50 Contemporaries who looked back on the fall of 1941 had clearer

memories of Churchill’s statement than of the Charter itself. Jawaharlal Nehru, the future

prime minister of independent India, recalled hearing about the Atlantic Charter while in

prison, serving his sentence for participating in the 1940-41 Gandhian personal

satyagraha campaign: “we heard of the Atlantic Charter, and, soon after, of Mr.

Churchill’s qualification that this charter had no application to India.”51 For Nehru

looking back, Churchill’s September 9 speech about the Charter emerged just as clearly

as the Atlantic Charter itself. Nehru’s memory of the Charter can represent the impact of

the Charter on India: the importance of the Charter lay less in the text itself than in

50 “Mr Churchill’s ‘No,’” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 62. 51 Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (New York: The John Day Company, 1946), 449.

51

Churchill’s speech about it. As Coupland put it, “if the matter had rested” with the

Charter itself, “there might have been no dispute,” but Churchill’s explanation turned the

question into a political football.52 V.P. Menon’s account of the transfer of power from

Britain to India only mentions the Atlantic Charter at all because Churchill’s speech

“caused considerable resentment in India.”53 British intelligence in Madras noted that

“Mr. Churchill’s explanation of the Atlantic Charter has been a disappointment to

practically all parties,” bringing together for a rare moment the Congress, the Muslim

League, and the Hindu Mahasabha.54 By 1942, the fallout still felt raw, made apparent by

U.S. journalist Kate Mitchell as she indexed the Indians “among all sections

of…opinion,” including non-Congressmen, who reacted against Churchill’s

interpretation.55 Churchill’s statement had transformed the debate about the Atlantic

Charter from a concern over the text and its application into a locus of opposition to

British policy generally.

Even worse, Churchill’s statement invited criticism from usually pro-British

voices within India. The first punch came from the prime minister of Punjab, the pro-

British Sikander Hyat Khan, who issued a press statement on October 1 at Simla. Hyat

Khan frankly shared his wish that Churchill’s statement “had never even been made”

given the furor it provoked, citing the “considerable criticism and resentment” as well as

“despondency and dismay” it created across India. More damning, Hyat Khan considered

the statement an opportunity to question the “bonafides of British Government.” Hyat

Khan rejected applying the Atlantic Charter to India and opposed Gandhi’s satyagraha

52 Coupland, “Indian Politics, 1936-1942,” 261. 53 Menon, The Transfer of Power in India, 111. 54 “Fortnightly Report Dated 4 October 1941 for the Second Half of September 1941,” in Gupta and Dev,

Towards Freedom, 385. 55 Kate L. Mitchell, India Without Fable: A 1942 Survey (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942), 234.

52

movement, but even this Anglophile moderate expressed frustration with the typical

British arguments about necessary qualifications on the process for devolving power in

India. Instead, Hyat Khan insisted that any new statement be made “in simple

unambiguous terms without being hedged in by avoidable qualifications,” implying that

other statements had not met these conditions.56

Coming from such a moderate and typically pro-British source, Hyat Khan’s

critique particularly damaged British credibility. The criticism would have proved

damaging enough in isolation, but Hyat Khan’s statement represented only one in a wave

of comments. Criticism came from typical allies such as leading Indian Liberals like

Supreme Court Justice Dr. M.R. Jayakar, liberal Congressman H.N. Kunzru, and non-

party (moderate) leader Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, who denounced Churchill’s equivocation

in a widely-reported November 2 statement.57 Supreme Court Justice Dr. M.R. Jayakar

“declared that ‘the British Government have done nothing to make us feel that this war is

ours too... England would have done far better if she had appealed to India’s love of

freedom and democracy rather than to fear of dreadful consequences of a Nazi victory. It

was the slave owners’ argument.’”58 Sapru angrily wrote that “Mr Churchill used

language which has made many people to doubt whether he and his Government do

really mean to part with power and whether India will ever attain real self-government.”

Having used Churchill’s speech to broach the subject, Sapru then proposed that “the

future of India should have been made clear long ago by using definite, certain and

56 “Text of Sikander Hyat Khan’s Statement, Simla, 1 October 1941,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards

Freedom, 606. 57 Mitchell, India Without Fable, 234. On Kunzru, cf. Manzoor Ahmad, Indian Response to the Second

World War (New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House, 1987), 66. 58 Mitchell, India Without Fable, 234-235.

53

unambiguous language,” such as that in the Atlantic Charter and unlike Churchill’s

statement, or the August Offer.59

Illustrating this loss of credibility, Sorensen deployed the statement from Hyat

Khan to embarrass Amery in the Commons on October 9. Amery continued to stand his

ground, referring to the September 9 Churchill statement as the final word on India. Even

so, Sorensen used the exchange to suggest that, since “a gentleman of this eminence

[Hyat Khan], who can by no means be classified as an extremist, must have very great

doubt as to the real intentions of the Government,” Britain “must reconsider our whole

Indian policy to satisfy people of this kind.”60

The exchange in the Commons, reported in India, generated another Indian

response on October 11.61 The Tribune’s answer to Amery aptly summarized Indian

indignation at Churchill’s September 9 statement, which Amery had repeated to answer

Sorensen. The frustrated Tribune said that Amery and Churchill’s responses would only

be satisfactory “if the complaint of India had been that the Atlantic Charter had so altered

the [August 1940] declaration as to make it unacceptable to India.” The paper claimed

that “no one knew better than Mr. Amery that the exact reverse of this was the case.”

Instead of desiring the British government to reiterate the August Offer, Indian

anticolonialists had hoped the Atlantic Charter would, in fact, “qualify [the Offer] in such

a manner as to bring it into harmony with itself.”62 From this point the debate refocused

onto the August Offer rather than the Atlantic Charter itself, and so The Tribune

59 “How Far the Fundamental Principles Apply to India, Sir Tej Bahadur’s Statement” (Amrita Bazar

Patrika, 3 November 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 70 and 71. 60 374 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1941) 1104-1105.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/oct/09/atlantic-charter (accessed March 8, 2013). 61 Cf. “Amery Commentary on Churchill’s Statement: No Change in British Policy Towards India”

(Bombay Chronicle, 10 October 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 63. 62 “India and the Atlantic Charter” (The Tribune, 11 October 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom,

64.

54

proceeded to re-enunciate its opposition to the August Offer. The Atlantic Charter

controversy had only added fuel to the flame of controversy about the August Offer.

Hence, the paper asked rhetorically “what possible objection the British Government can

have to stating explicitly that the Atlantic Charter shall apply to India, if, as Mr Churchill

said the principles underlying that Charter are also the principles that underlie the British

Government’s Indian policy?” Indeed, the paper noted the very space which the Atlantic

Charter had opened for Indian nationalists: “Does it not occur to [Churchill and Amery]

that in the very act of denying the applicability of the Atlantic Charter to India they are

emphasizing the difference between their Indian policy and the principles laid down in

the Atlantic Charter?”63 Sapru and the Non-Party Congress noted the same discrepancy,

calling the August Offer “not wholly consistent” with the Atlantic Charter, returning to

the familiar criticism that the August Offer was “hedged in by too many conditions.”64 As

such, the Offer could not fulfill Indian demands for self-determination.

The most serious challenge to Churchill’s statement came from the Central

Legislative Assembly in British India, made up of moderate Indian statesmen. One

assemblyman proposed a resolution insisting that the Atlantic Charter did, in fact, apply

to India.65 The arguments in the debate also illustrated a wide range of ways to use the

Atlantic Charter against the British. G.V. Deshmukh rejected Churchill and Amery’s

claims with disdain, saying the British had sought the Charter only when desperate for

U.S. support, and once guaranteed that support, had thrown out the logical application to

63 “India and the Atlantic Charter,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 65. 64 “How Far the Fundamental Principles Apply to India, Sir Tej Bahadur’s Statement” (Amrita Bazar

Patrika, 3 November 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 70. 65 “Central Legislative Assembly Discusses Resolution on India and the Atlantic Charter, 29 October

1941,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 67.

55

India.66 Likewise, Jamnadas Mehta saw the Charter as “an unequivocal declaration that

all races and countries had the right of self-determination,” rejecting Churchill’s

statement which “threw them back to the declaration of August 1940,” which he

identified as “a declarative of bondage – to perpetuate vested interests, and the British

hold over [India], giving the minorities power to veto the progress of India.” Instead of

appealing to Churchill or Amery’s interpretation, Mehta looked back to Attlee’s words on

August 15, citing Attlee rather than Churchill or Amery.67 L.K. Maitra also defended the

self-determination interpretation of the Charter as “quite clear” and “equally applicable to

all countries and races of the world including India,” from which “Mr Churchill might

now try to wriggle out.”68 Accepting the Atlantic Charter as a British affirmation of self-

determination, Indians used that declaration to demonstrate British hypocrisy in their

actual policy, laid out in the August Offer, which maintained British-defined restrictions

on the process to transfer sovereignty. Mehta reacted particularly violently against use of

typical British arguments during the Assembly debate, yelling “You are talking like Mr.

Amery” and “You are Mr. Amery!” when a pro-British assemblyman argued that the

minority issue in India prevented the application of pure self-determination to India.69

M.S. Aney, leader of the House, though tacitly arguing against the resolution, made a

critical observation, noting that the real issue was whether India “believed that promises

coming from statesmen of eminence had some meaning or we did not believe it.”70

Though the critics of Churchill never articulated their argument in the Legislative

Assembly as such, their argument did rest on a distrust of the August Offer.

66 “Central Legislative Assembly,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 68. 67 “Central Legislative Assembly,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 69. 68 “Central Legislative Assembly,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 69. 69 “Central Legislative Assembly,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 69. 70 “Central Legislative Assembly,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 68.

56

When the Legislative Assembly continued its debate on November 12, Rao Saheb

Sivaraj provided a unique perspective on the controversy, offered in opposition to the

resolution but in no way flattering to British credibility. He recalled “the saying that

when a promise is made which we knew was not likely to be kept, we said: ‘write it in

water.’ Remembering this, it was unfortunate…that the Charter was entered into mid-

ocean,” prompting laughter from the Assembly but also evincing a jaundiced eye toward

British pronouncements. Rao Saheb Sivaraj made light of the situation, but still expected

duplicity from British leaders, noting that Churchill had entered into the Charter under

the duress of waging a war without allies, and had needed to appease a U.S. audience.

From this perspective, he saw attempts to appropriate the Charter’s rhetoric as hopelessly

naïve. However, the resolution evidently had wide support as it passed without a division

of the house.71 On November 18, the resolution then passed the upper house in the GOI’s

central legislative body, the Council of State, by a vote of 10-6, entering onto the record

and representing a formal reprimand to Churchill from the traditionally controlled halls of

the GOI.72

Churchill’s government, however, had never intended to compromise on the

question of India, not least during the war. Faced with censure from the normally

compliant Indians picked to consult the GOI, Leo Amery delivered a speech in

Manchester on November 19, likely intending to respond and settle the Indian question

for the time being. Amery ceded no ground to the British government’s critics, insisting

that the August Offer “was no less far-reaching than the Roosevelt-Churchill Atlantic

Charter” and indeed “far more satisfying” given its specificity. He repeated the familiar

71 “Central Legislative Assembly Approves Resolution Recommending Application of Atlantic Charter to

India, 12 November 1941,” in ibid., 72–73. 72 “India protests stand voiced by Churchill,” New York Times, November 19, 1941.

57

British arguments, insisting “there must first be substantial agreement among the various

Indian factions” for constitutional negotiations, and that hence “the actual time table [for

independence] was up to the Indians themselves.”73 Amery did not draw the connection

between the August Offer’s insistence on Indian proposals protecting minority rights to

British satisfaction and the ongoing disunity. That is, Amery did not point out that,

though he claimed the August Offer exceeded the language of the Atlantic Charter, the

August Offer provided the pretext on which he justified not implementing the Atlantic

Charter’s straightforward language of self-determination in India. Amery also responded

directly to “the clamour for what is called the application of the Atlantic Charter to

India,” which he patronizingly chastised as a “typical instance of loose thinking” on the

part of Indians, characterizing Indian critics as childish and immature (“clamour”). In

Amery’s view, Indians ought to have been pleased by the concessions British

governments had made, and then sit quietly and fight during the war, rather than dare to

make their own demands, even ones based on British declarations.

By the end of November 1941, the Atlantic Charter’s brief episode in Indian

history appeared to have ended. Gandhi showed little interest in the Atlantic Charter,

many Congress leaders languished in prison from the individual satyagraha campaign,

and other Indian leaders had pursued their critique based on the Charter through the

highest level of the GOI, but Churchill’s government stood as stalwart as ever. However,

the Charter had not been a unilateral British declaration. The Atlantic Charter, or the Joint

Churchill-Roosevelt declaration, had been an American document as well as a British

one, issued at the same time as the establishment of U.S.-Indian diplomatic ties. As an

American document, the Charter could be invoked to appeal to U.S. audiences.

73 “India’s status held a post-war problem,” New York Times, November 20, 1941.

58

Moreover, with a new U.S.-Indian diplomatic channel, Indian nationalists could take their

interpretation to the representatives of U.S. power even before the entry of the United

States into the war after December 7, 1941.

Indian Appeals to the United States

An October 6 editorial in Calcutta’s Amrita Bazar Patrika noted initial motions

by the Indian independence movement to appeal to a U.S. audience. The editorial

reported U.S. interest in India’s anticolonial movement by citing anecdotal evidence from

a recent tour of the United States as well as reporting from Reuters, and then welcomed

U.S. journalists coming to India.74 Amrita Bazar Patrika assigned a political value to the

U.S. correspondents coming to India, and promoted sending Indians to the United States,

in order “not to propagandize in America but to tell the American people the barest truth

about India in the simplest possible language.”75 The paper rejected the label of

propaganda based on its conception of the United States, whose people the paper hoped

to convince “that the Indian cause is just and righteous.” Since the paper espoused an

image of Americans as “an intelligent and freedom loving people,” “[Americans] would

take active and lively interest in the political destinies of the vast masses of people in

[India].”76 Amrita Bazar Patrika offered an optimistic perspective on winning over the

U.S. audience, placing faith in U.S. anticolonialism to pressure Churchill or at least

rectify the pro-British bias in the U.S. press.

74 “India and America” (Amrita Bazar Patrika, 6 October 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom,

197–198. The article claimed articles on India appeared in the Chicago Times, the New York World

Telegram, Time, the New York Daily Mirror, New York Sun, New York Herald-Tribune, Chicago Tribune,

Look, and Harper’s Magazine. 75 “India and America” (Amrita Bazar Patrika, 6 October 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 198;

emphasis in original. 76 “India and America,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 197–198.

59

The Indian expatriate Taraknath Das offered a more dire warning directly to

readers of the New York Times, representing in clear language how the Atlantic Charter

had unambiguously implicated the United States in British colonial policy. Das warned of

British “racial imperialism” generally, exemplified by “the British Government’s attitude

on the interpretation of the Atlantic Charter as given out by Mr. Churchill,” depicting it

as comparable to Nazism. Das directly tied British racial imperialism to the U.S. image

among colonized people, noting that “unless repudiated by Mr. Roosevelt,” the Atlantic

Charter would “be interpreted by several hundred millions of the peoples of the East as

another instance of hypocrisy of the British Government in which the Government of the

United States has become a party.” Having presented the threat to U.S. credibility, Das

then evoked the “definite responsibility” of the “Americans who are supporting Britain in

the present struggle.”77

Das’ editorial only represented the most public, explicit, and American

articulation of Indians seeking to draw the United States into the conflict via the Atlantic

Charter. In London, the India League’s Menon privately lobbied U.S. Ambassador

Winant.78 A Labor MP from North Cumberland observed that “[the leaders of Indian

opinion] have looked to America and other countries [to derive inspiration] and they still

so look.”79 Dr. Leslie Haden-Guest, MP for North Islington, even noted on September 30

in the Commons that a declaration “to the peoples of China and India and the black

people of Africa” that in “the democratic world for which we are fighting, there will be

equality of political and economic circumstances for all races” would reinforce “the

77 Taraknath Das, “‘Racial Imperialism’ an Issue: British Attitude Toward India Held in Need of Revision,”

New York Times, November 22, 1941. Emphasis added. 78 “On the Present Position of the India League, 5 November 1941,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom,

573. 79 Labor MP (North Cumberland), quoted in Rubin, “America, Britain, and Swaraj,” 44.

60

efforts of our friends in every land, in the United States, in China and in India.”80 Haden-

Guest directly tied the credibility of British pronouncements to support in the United

States and in India, so that even from a British perspective the three nations had become

linked by the Atlantic Charter.

Indians in India also linked U.S. and British policies based on the Atlantic

Charter, using appeals to the United States to criticize Britain. Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru’s

statement on November 2 urged the United States to offer an alternative interpretation of

the Atlantic Charter to counter Churchill’s. Sapru appealed to anticolonialism among

Americans by claiming he found it “difficult to believe that it could have been the

intention of President Roosevelt to exclude India” from the Charter “when it is a matter

of common knowledge that American opinion for some time past has been definitely

critical of British policy towards India.” Sapru cited Secretary of State Hull’s description

of the Charter “as a statement of basic principles and fundamental ideas that are universal

in their practical application” as an American parallel to Attlee’s universal interpretation

of the Charter. Moreover, Sapru raised questions about Roosevelt’s personal credibility,

saying India could not “believe that [Roosevelt] could have been a party to the exclusion

of India from the benefits of this principle” of self-determination.81 Sapru used the

Atlantic Charter to draw the United States and Roosevelt into the Indian-British debate.

Introducing his resolution on the Atlantic Charter into the Central Legislative

Assembly, Maulvi Abdur Rasheed Chaudhury particularly highlighted “that when

President Roosevelt announced his eight points of peace and war aims of the

80 374 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th ser.) (1941) 538-539.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/30/war-situation (accessed March 8, 2013).

Emphasis added. 81 “How Far the Fundamental Principles Apply to India, Sir Tej Bahadur’s Statement” (Amrita Bazar

Patrika, 3 November 1941), in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 70.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/sep/30/war-situation

61

Democracies, Indians thought that they would be equally applicable to India,” directly

tying the Atlantic Charter to Roosevelt personally.82 Chaudhury also expressed optimism

noting that “the people in this country considered that America has a certain partnership

in the British Empire and the words of the President of the United States would not be

taken lightly by the British authorities.”83 Chaudhury’s citation of Roosevelt, both in

disappointment and optimism, reflected how Indian nationalist discourse had brought

U.S. actions and figures into the Indian-British debate.

U.S. envoy Thomas Wilson also recognized Indian criticism of Roosevelt as an

attempt to exert pressure on the President. Wilson read critiques and evocations such as

Sapru’s and Chaudhury’s as attempts to attract publicity to keep “prominently before the

world India’s position” and to “force from Mr. Roosevelt some sort of statement which

might be construed as repudiation of the Prime Minister’s statement of inapplicability to

India of the Atlantic Charter.” Should Indian nationalists succeed in drawing Roosevelt

into a direct statement on India, Wilson warned that they would cast Roosevelt’s

credibility against that of Churchill.84 Amid the controversy over Churchill’s

interpretation of the Atlantic Charter, Indian voices turned to the United States and to

President Roosevelt particularly to support their argument and gain leverage against

Churchill’s British government.85

82 Chaudhury also drew a cautionary analogy to “President Wilson’s Fourteen Points which were trampled

upon when the [First World] war ended.” “Central Legislative Assembly,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards

Freedom, 67. Emphasis added. 83 “Central Legislative Assembly,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 67. 84 Wilson (Commissioner [hereafter C], India) to Secretary, November 28, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:188–189. 85 That the British government had become increasingly sensitive to the possibility of U.S. anticolonialism

bringing adverse consequences in India is demonstrated by its extreme reaction to a single article in a U.S.

Lutheran magazine, “England’s Wars,” which appeared in the Oct. 24, 1940 issue of Lutherischer Herald.

This single article prompted the GOI to halt all Lutheran missionaries receiving visas to enter India until

U.S. diplomatic intervention via Winant in London led the GOI to back down, as long as missionaries

certified they would not engage in political activity while in India. Cf. FRUS 1941, 3:209–212.

62

Other Indians invoked U.S. involvement negatively, seeing the potential for U.S.

intervention as an unfortunate development. In the Central Legislative Assembly, Sardar

Sant Singh saw the Atlantic Charter as an anti-British attack, wherein “America was

really splitting up the British Empire,” and more nationalistically, argued that “India did

not look to any outsider for giving her freedom but would stand on her own legs.”86

Likewise, Cornelia Sobraji submitted a letter to the Times claiming U.S. involvement

amounted to an outsider barging into “questions as between any unit in the family.”

Sobraji argued that “one cannot believe that internal control [of India by Britain]…was in

the mind of either our Prime Minister or President Roosevelt.”87 The U.S. angle could,

thus, cut both ways, but the vast majority of voices and the most influential voices tying

the United States to India via the Atlantic Charter argued against Churchill’s

interpretation of the Charter.

The most famous Indian (to U.S. audiences) also contributed to the discussion, if

indirectly, in keeping with his personal disinterest in the Atlantic Charter. U.S.

newspapers reported October 12 comments from Gandhi, who did not reference the

Atlantic Charter but did seek to bring about U.S. pressure on Britain. Gandhi suggested

“that the United States ought not to enter the war or even give more active aid to Britain

without getting certain guarantees in advance,” saying that the United States “should ask

what will happen to India, Asia and African possessions” and “withdraw any help unless

there are guarantees of human liberties.”88 Gandhi’s notoriety brought him success on

this line, as the Chicago Daily Tribune appropriated his language to note that “another

idealist thinks it over and decides it’s not his kind of idealism,” comparing Gandhi to

86 “Central Legislative Assembly,” in Gupta and Dev, Towards Freedom, 67–68. 87 Cornelia Sorabji, “India and the Atlantic Charter,” The Times, November 8, 1941. 88 “Gandhi Advises U.S. on Policy,” Los Angeles Times, October 13, 1941.

63

Lincoln, “another idealist who was forced to fight a war” with “no option of staying out,

as we have now.” However, Lincoln “had time to stretch out his hand over a whole race

and say, ‘These shall be free.’” In an unflattering comparison to Lincoln, the paper asked

“where is the British emancipation proclamation? It is a brown skinned man at a spinning

wheel who asks. Why is he not answered?”89 Kansas Republican Senator Arthur Capper

took a similar line on the Senate floor October 31, noting that while “carrying the four

freedoms to western Europe, Russia, the orient, Japan, China, India,” and elsewhere “has

a noble sound,” he feared “that in our attempts to carry the four freedoms to the rest of

the world, we may only succeed in turning the four horsemen loose in our own

America.”90 Gandhian distaste for war and the British failure to match his idealism in

their actual policies, to which Gandhi attached far more weight than declarative policy

statements such as the Atlantic Charter, provided a further weapon for U.S. anti-

interventionists in their crusade against Roosevelt’s support for the British, represented

by the Atlantic Charter.

In a dynamic which would become familiar to U.S. observers during the Cold

War, U.S. ties to an imperial power presented both an anticolonial opportunity and the

threat of postcolonial resentment should the United States fail to use its leverage in the

interest of colonized peoples. With its new representation at Delhi, the Roosevelt

administration had perhaps its first opportunity to intervene in Anglo-Indian affairs when

the Central Legislative Assembly’s repudiated Churchill’s interpretation of the Atlantic

Charter. The position of the Indian portion of the GOI had great importance for U.S.-

Indian relations. The U.S. envoy, Wilson, arrived in Delhi on November 21, three days

89 “Idealism,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 16, 1941. 90 Sen. Arthur Capper, quoted in Willard Edwards, “77 Unaccounted For,” Chicago Daily Tribune,

November 1, 1941. Emphasis added.

64

after the Council of State had passed the resolution.91 Hull reminded Wilson that “one of

the reasons for the establishment of the Office of the Commissioner at New Delhi was to

enable the Department to receive timely and complete reports on just this type of

thing.”92

Wilson claimed, however, that “the ‘considerable prominence’ which the

American press gave to the passage of this resolution has most certainly not been

reflected by any section of the Indian press and editorial comment has been notably

lacking,” insisting that no real controversy existed at all.93 Wilson acknowledged that

“the Atlantic Charter has been adversely commented on editorially by many sections of

the press [in] India and that from time to time President Roosevelt’s name has been

drawn in,” demonstrating that Indian discourse had drawn the United States firmly into

the controversy.94 Like Welles’ conservative reading of U.S. criticism of Churchill,

Wilson did not see Indian criticism of President Roosevelt as in any way dire: “Mr.

Roosevelt’s popularity and press in India are almost universally excellent,” making

criticism “inconsequential.”95

Rather than challenge what it perceived as a beleaguered Churchill government,

the United States opted to keep its criticism of British Indian policy private, failing to

respond to Indian demands for U.S. intervention. The Atlantic Charter controversy had

provided the first opportunity for the United States government to intervene directly on

behalf of Indian nationalism. Under the influence of Welles and Wilson, the United

States opted not to enter directly into the Anglo-Indian dispute, despite its powerful

91 “First U.S. Envoy to India”; “India protests stand voiced by Churchill.” 92 Secretary to Wilson (C-India), November 25, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:187–188. 93 Wilson (C-India) to Secretary, November 28, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:188. 94 Wilson (C-India) to Secretary, November 28, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:188-189. 95 Wilson (C-India) to Secretary, November 28, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:188.

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leverage, which had brought about the bilateral U.S.-Indian relationship over the summer

of 1941. The U.S. government chose not to weigh in on the Indian problem at its first

opportunity to do so.

***

The Atlantic Charter did not exit the field of debate after the U.S. entry into the

war after Pearl Harbor. A 1942 pamphlet circulated in the United States repeated

Taraknath Das’ November 1941 arguments, telling Americans that “President Roosevelt,

as a co-signatory of the Atlantic Charter, has assumed a real moral responsibility for

enforcing a policy which will ensure freedom for all peoples, irrespective of their race,

color and creed,” a moral responsibility which if unfulfilled would make the Atlantic

Charter (and subsequent U.S. rhetoric) “a symbol of hypocrisy.”96 Kate Mitchell’s 1942

book also drew attention to the need to bolster U.S. credibility by supplementing the

Atlantic Charter, particularly concerning India, since “India symbolizes the whole

problem of mobilizing the colonial world in the war against the Axis” and “thus far, the

colonial peoples of Asia have not been given either the opportunity or the incentive to

fight as equal partners in the war,” specifically citing Churchill’s qualification of the

Atlantic Charter as part of this problem.97 Mitchell warned that in areas under Japanese

control, the United States and Great Britain “have yet to offer specific proof that a victory

over the Axis would mean freedom for [colonized] peoples and not merely a change of

masters.”98

However, U.S. attention had been drawn away, and the failure of their

appropriation of the Charter to elicit results drew Indian nationalists away as well. On

96 Quoted in Borgwardt, “When You State a Moral Principle, You Are Stuck with It,” 533. 97 Mitchell, India Without Fable, 9. 98 Mitchell, India Without Fable, 295.

66

December 9, in his last comments before news of the Pearl Harbor attack reached India,

Gandhi expressed his exasperation with any discussion of the Atlantic Charter. Evelyn

Wrench, editor of the British magazine The Spectator, asked him if he had hope that

Britain would ever “embrace all nations” “according to the sentiments expressed in the

Atlantic Charter?” Gandhi’s reply revealed his distrust of U.S. idealism and declarative

policy: “What is the Atlantic Charter? It went down the ocean as soon as it was born! I do

not understand it.”99

The damage to Allied credibility by Churchill’s interpretation had been done. In

early December 1941, the Congress factions issued a joint statement at Bardoli,

indicating wholesale “hostility and distrust of the British government and not even the

most far-reaching promises can alter this background, nor can a subject India offer

voluntary or willing help to an arrogant imperialism which is indistinguishable from

fascist authoritarianism.”100 As an Indian historian put it, “the hopes raised by the

Atlantic Charter...embodying the principles of self-determination of the people was

dashed by the statement of Churchill that the Charter did not apply to India.”101 Even

more crucially, Churchill’s “declaration had embittered even those Indians who were not

actively participating in the freedom struggle,” and “had angered those who had been

living abroad for many years,” broadening the base of Indians mobilized in opposition to

the British government to whatever extent.102 The impact of the Charter controversy on

the even more violent controversies of 1942, concerning the Cripps Offer and the Quit

India movement, has yet to be explored, but Churchill’s repudiation of the Charter in

99 “Interview to Evelyn Wrench” (appearing in March 6, 1942 edition of The Spectator), CWMG 81:347-

348. 100 Rubin, “America, Britain, and Swaraj,” 43. 101 Ahmad, Indian Response to the Second World War, 65–66. 102 Ahmad, Indian Response to the Second World War, 206.

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India and the failure of the United States to respond to Indian demands for intervention

on the question can be seen retrospectively as raising the political stakes even before the

United States entered the war.

Howard Thurman, an African-American reflecting on the Atlantic Charter in

1958, offers perhaps the most poignant summary of its impact. He, like Nehru,

remembered the Charter primarily for Churchill’s statement on it. However, he also

projected back onto the Charter the way in which it could be used against colonial power.

Challenged by fascism’s conception of a new world order, the Anglo-American allies had

found it necessary to spell out in detail their proposed new order. But in the specificity of

that order, including as it did self-determination, Churchill and Roosevelt had opened the

way for anticolonialists to challenge the very colonial order those such as Churchill

sought to uphold and which those such as Welles or Wilson proved unwilling to

challenge: “The degree to which they spelled out the meaning of democracy in clear cut

working definitions, to that degree did they create unrest within the democracy, for now

people who felt that they were denied democratic practice within the countries

themselves could have this denial defined in the light of definitions created by the

necessity to combat fascism. The rest of the story is recent history.”103

The recent history that author recalled had begun in 1941, and within this

interpretative framework, Indian appropriations of the Atlantic Charter had formed one of

the first episodes of that recent history. Indian nationalists began to draw U.S. audiences

into the debate on Indian independence at the same time as U.S. policymakers began to

exert more influence directly on India as a polity. However, the U.S. failure to respond to

103 Howard Thurman, “The New Heaven and the New Earth,” The Journal of Negro Education 27, no. 2

(Spring 1958): 118–119.

68

Indian nationalist calls set a precedent for the United States to defer to its imperialist

allies rather than actualize traditional U.S. anticolonial rhetoric. Eventually, the same

criticisms leveled against Churchill would turn against U.S. leaders, but anticolonial

declarations such as the Atlantic Charter would continue to give hope and provide

rhetorical ammunition for those challenging the colonial status quo.

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Chapter Three

“The Shade of Principles of Justice and Liberty”1: Syria and the Atlantic Charter

August 14, 1941, found Syria a dynamic and violent political environment. Syria

had endured internal and external turmoil since the fall of France to the Axis in June

1940. The war itself had come on the heels of a prolonged period of political crisis in

Syria. To appreciate any impact of the Atlantic Charter, it needs to be placed in the

tumultuous context of Syrian politics.

Syria before the Atlantic Charter

In 1941, the idea of the polity of “Syria” itself remained a contested construction.

France had created entirely new polities out of the former Ottoman territories it occupied

in 1920, formalized by the League of Nations as “mandates.” Though in the League’s

Wilsonian terms the French Mandates aimed toward eventual independence, the French

administered their territories as virtual colonies. The French administration disregarded

the will of their territories’ inhabitants about the borders of their polity. Between 1920

and 1936, the French mandatory regime arbitrarily reorganized their Syrian mandate into

various configurations, first expanding the former Ottoman province around Mount

Lebanon and Beirut to establish a Maronite Christian-dominated “Greater Lebanon” also

including Sunni, Shi'a, and Druze Muslims. Then, the French created “autonomous

regions” within the rump Syrian mandate: the Alawite Shi’a region of Latakia along the

Mediterranean; the Jebel Druze region along the Trans-Jordanian border; and the French-

military ruled Jazira region across the Euphrates River, home of a Kurdish minority. The

1 Mohammed Aziz El-Khani to President Roosevelt, April 8, 1943, 3, Official File [hereafter OF] 2418

(Syria), Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library (Hyde Park, NY) [hereafter, FDRPL].

70

remaining “Lesser” Syria centered on the Sunni Arab urban areas of Damascus, Aleppo,

Homs, and Hama. The French sought to dismantle even this agglomeration, dividing their

administration between the “state of Damascus” and the “government of Aleppo.”2 For

this project, we will consider this Lesser Syria, with its attached regions in Latakia, Jebel

Druze, and Jazira, as “Syria.”

Having failed to oust the French in a 1925-1927 revolt, pro-independence leaders

in Lesser Syria's main urban areas united in 1927, forming the National Bloc. These

leaders, largely “urban-based…absentee landlords and the wing of the commercial

bourgeoisie,” represented a narrow class interest but a wide variety of political opinions.3

By 1936 the Bloc had developed enough political strength to pressure Léon Blum’s

Popular Front government into negotiations for at least semi-colonial independence,

along the lines of British treaty relationships with nominally independent Egypt and

Iraq.4 However, post-Blum governments refused to ratify the 1936 agreement, returning

Syria to its state as a colonially-ruled mandate. Out of this process, the Bloc secured the

reattachment to Syria of Latakia and Jebel Druze as well as limited self-government.5

By entering the French-sponsored government, the National Bloc had largely

jettisoned its hopes for a “Greater Syria,” the polity which had motivated most nationalist

activists since the Ottoman era. Greater Syria incorporated present-day Syria, Lebanon,

Israel/Palestine, and Jordan.6 In the face of French intransigence on the question of

Lebanese independence, Bloc leaders largely abandoned their hopes of regaining even

2 Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 29

and 31. Pipes’ work is an excellent survey of contestation over what comprises ‘Syria.’ 3 Philip S. Khoury, “The Syrian Independence Movement and the Growth of Economic Nationalism in

Damascus,” Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 14, no. 1 (1987): 26. 4 Salma Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest for Independence, 1939-1945 (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 1994), 3. 5 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 12. 6 Aweed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 2003), 88.

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this component of Greater Syria.7 By the mid-1940s, the urban notables who led the

National Bloc focused on the more immediate possibility of regaining power within a

“Lesser Syria” rather than the less achievable ideas of restoring a Greater Syria, or even

pursuing a pan-Arab nation-state. As Syria’s prime minister noted in 1944, “Lesser Syria

had already existed for a generation and had its own identity.”8 Throughout the Second

World War, Syria’s nationalist leaders would focus on gaining independence for their

own limited polity rather than pursuing more ambitious policies. When they referred to

the Atlantic Charter, they would refer to it in the context of self-determination for

“Lesser” Syria rather than a Greater Syria or an Arab nation-state. Only in the postwar

era, with the French out of the way, would pan-Arab nationalists contest the more

conservative notables for power.9

Even gains in pursuit of the limited project of a Lesser Syria began to disappear

on the eve of the War, destabilizing the fraught Franco-Bloc relationship. In the face of

an imperious French representative, Gabriel Puaux, the Bloc resigned from its

participation in government in February 1939, after which Puaux suspended Syrian self-

government in July. Even worse for nationalists, in June France had permanently ceded

the Sanjak of Alexandretta (or Hatay), along Syria's northwest coast, to Turkey, seeking

to preserve its neutrality in an anticipated war with Nazi Germany. This move enraged

and delegitimized the Bloc, which had lobbied against such a move.10 Puaux reversed the

7 Pipes, Greater Syria, 55 and 64. 8 Pipes, Greater Syria, 54. 9 Dawisha, Arab Nationalism, 97-98. 10 For more on this complex international issue, see Avedis K. Sanjian, “The Sanjak of Alexandretta

(Hatay): Its Impact on Turkish-Syrian Relations (1939-1956),” Middle East Journal 10, no. 4 (Autumn

1956): 379–382; Y. Olmert, “Britain, Turkey and the Levant Question during the Second World War,”

Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 4 (October 1987): 437. Turkey’s neutrality agreement with Bulgaria amid

the German’s Balkan offensive in spring 1941 reaffirmed Syrians’ frustration at the French cession of

72

Bloc's 1936 reunification of Damascus-Aleppo with Latakia and the Jebel Druze, re-

balkanizing the already divided rump state of Lesser Syria. The declaration of a state of

emergency with the onset of France’s war with Germany in September 1939 completed

the stifling of any legal nationalist power in Syria.11

Thus, France's defeat in June 1940 presented a moment of ambiguity and promise

for Syria's anticolonial nationalists. On the one hand, the humiliation of France's defeat

harmed its already abysmal political reputation in Syria. On the other hand, the most

organized and radical independence pressure group, the Bloc, had been completely

humiliated and tarnished by its failures to prevent the reversal of all its gains in 1939.

Thus, even with its hated overlords humiliated, French Syria remained relatively calm

after the fall of France.12 Crucially, the Vichy government retained the loyalty of the

French government in Syria, aligning the colonial government with the Axis.

Internal and international circumstances combined after France’s fall to effect a

political realignment in Syria. On July 6, 1940, the leading non-Bloc nationalist, Dr.

Shahbandar, was assassinated in Damascus.13 At the time, this seemed an enormous

setback for the Bloc, since Puaux blamed the Bloc for their rival's death, using the

Alexandretta/Hatay to Turkey in 1939: Engert (Consul-General [hereafter CG] Beirut) to State, February

19, 1941, FRUS 1941 3:688. 11 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 17. Nonetheless, Khoury noted that “Syrian towns were unusually tranquil”

after all these developments: Philip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab

Nationalism, 1920-1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 584. 12 The U.S. consul-general in Beirut refuted rumors of disturbances in Damascus on June 23, and Puaux

assured him of continuing “manifestations of loyalty” by native inhabitants. Palmer (CG Beirut) to State,

June 23, 1940, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1940, vol. 3, The British

Commonwealth, The Soviet Union, The Near East and Africa (Washington, D.C.: United States

Government Printing Office, 1958), 891–892. However, as early as mid-July, economic unease emerged as

Syrian merchants began to lose faith in the franc, which backed their Syrian pound. They were “refusing to

sell goods in exchange for that currency,” a foreshadowing of bazaari-based protest to continue throughout

the war: Joseph M. Levy, “Arabs Held Uneasy Over Syria Status,” New York Times, July 17, 1940. 13 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 586–587; Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 18–19.

73

opportunity to discredit them.14 By autumn, France’s defeat presented new opportunities

for the nationalists when an Italian “armistice commission” arrived. Ostensibly present to

enforce the Axis armistices with France, but implicitly to promote an Italian takeover of

Syria and Lebanon, the commission generated intense opposition.15 Opposition centered

on antifascism and an opposition to colonial rule generally, which new Bloc leaders

would quickly turn back against the French.16 The prospect of an Italian takeover

presented the National Bloc with an opportunity to take a stand against all foreign

domination.

With Shahbandar and other Bloc leaders cleared from the scene, a more radical

member of the Bloc, Shukri al-Quwatli, became its main leader. Quwatli had refused to

countenance the 1936 proposal for a semi-colonial state, and his absence from the Bloc's

1936-1939 government absolved him from their discredited rule. At an October 27, 1940,

meeting in Damascus, Quwatli presented the Bloc's interest as independence alone, with

no foreign alliances to any power, even Axis powers. By repudiating Italy and Germany,

Quwatli left the Bloc a maximum of negotiating room for cooperation with various

agents in the turbulent international atmosphere.17 This early opposition to aligning with

14 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 18–19 insists the Bloc was innocent; Khoury, Syria and the French

Mandate, 588–589 is not so sure. In any case, the assassination resulted in a dispersal of Bloc personnel

outside Syria. As reported on July 16, “French authorities have removed to Beirut from Damascus the

important leaders of the Syrian Nationalist bloc”: Levy, “Arabs Held Uneasy.” 15 Cf. Levy, “Arabs Held Uneasy”; for Syrians’ distaste both for Italians and for “transfer” as spoils of war,

see: “Italian Aims in Syria,” The Times, September 16, 1940; “Italian Demands in Syria,” The Times,

September 17, 1940; “Italian Activities in Syria,” The Times, September 19, 1940; Palmer (CG Beirut) to

State, September 20, 1940, FRUS 1940, 3:910; “Demoralization in Syria,” The Times, October 17, 1940;

Joseph M. Levy, “Syrians Hostile Toward Italy,” New York Times, October 7, 1940; Palmer (CG Beirut) to

State, October 23, 1940, FRUS 1940, 3:921; Contempt for Italy became even clearer after Italy’s failure to

conquer Greece in November 1940, and its failures in Libya in early 1941: “Behind the Scenes in Syria,”

The Times, December 4, 1940; “Syrian Discontent Leads to Arrests,” New York Times, January 12, 1941. 16 Götz Nordbruch, “Bread, Freedom, Independence: Opposition to Nazi Germany in Lebanon and Syria

and the Struggle for a Just Order,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 28, no. 3

(2008): 420–422. 17 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 20–22, 27: Quwatli presented the proposal through a representative.

74

the Axis for anticolonial purposes would give credibility to later Syrian invocations of

Allied statements.

Syria’s internal political realignment occurred amid a rapidly changing

international situation as the Allies engaged the Axis outside Europe. The British

blockade of Vichy-ruled Syria and Lebanon generated severe economic problems in both

countries by the end of 1940, continuing into spring 1941.18 Following techniques first

used in 1936, the Bloc mobilized discontent with the French government by prompting

shop closures in Damascus and then all across Syria in early March 1941.19 On March 20,

Quwatli voiced his political demands, demanding the French allow the Bloc to form a

government in order to end the crisis.20 The Vichy regime, led by rightists who had

bitterly opposed Blum and the Popular Front’s plan to offer Syria semi-colonial

independence, proved no more willing to cede power than their predecessors, and

implemented martial law.21 Vichy eventually introduced a new, non-Bloc puppet

government, after which Quwatli called off the strike.22 The Bloc had not re-entered

government, but it had forced Vichy to concede the re-establishment of a nominally

18 “Italian Wiles in Syria,” The Times, October 26, 1940; “Behind the Scenes in Syria”; “French Authority

in Syria,” The Times, December 30, 1940; “Syrian Hardships Grow,” New York Times, March 6, 1941. 19 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 591. The strike spread to Aleppo and Homs; cf. Engert (CG

Beirut) to State, March 6, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:689; “Strike Spreads in Syria,” New York Times, March 7,

1941; “More Outbreaks in Syria Reported,” New York Times, March 16, 1941. Rioting on March 8 killed

four in Damascus, prompting the French to occupy Damascus on the 9th: “Four Killed in Syrian Riots,”

New York Times, March 10, 1941; “Order Restored After Riots,” New York Times, March 11, 1941; “More

Unrest in Syria,” New York Times, March 17, 1941. 20 “Syrian Nationalists Criticize Vichy Rule,” New York Times, March 24, 1941. 21 Vichy had replaced Puaux with General Henri Dentz at the end of 1940, charging him with implementing

political reforms to placate the Levantine mandate populations. However, the metropole rejected his

proposed reforms, refusing to countenance Bloc participation in governance: Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest,

24–26. Hence, Dentz’s reply to Quwatli did not placate the Bloc, prompting riots: “Moslem Aides for

Petain,” New York Times, March 25, 1941; “Syrian Riots Continue,” New York Times, March 26, 1941. On

martial law, cf. Engert (CG Beirut) to State, March 26, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:692. Dentz implemented a

curfew on March 27, but denied that he was imposing “martial law nor a state of siege”: “Curfew Imposed

in Syria,” New York Times, March 28, 1941. 22 “Iraq and Syria,” The Times, April 9, 1941; Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 591; Mardam Bey,

Syria’s Quest, 31–32.

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Syrian government. Vichy brought in a new ally to head this government in late April, a

longtime French collaborator named Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hassani.23

While Vichy had tamped down internal problems in Syria, its representatives soon

faced an external threat. In the wake of an anti-British coup, the British invaded Iraq in

May 1941. This prompted Allied fears that the Axis might use Syrian air bases against

Britain in Iraq, culminating in the June invasion of Syria and Lebanon by the British and

their Free French allies.

Amid these rapid geopolitical shifts, Quwatli attempted to articulate the position

of Syrian anticolonialists to the lead U.S. representative in Syria, Cornelius van Engert.

Quwatli attempted to secure concessions from the Allies and their U.S. benefactor by

emphasizing the Axis threat and by conflating opposition to the Axis and Allied

colonialism. This helped explain why antifascist Syrians would attack the British

consulate in Damascus on May 4 in protest against the invasion of Iraq. One Bloc leader,

Fakhri al-Baroodi, equated Hitler’s racism with London and Paris' handling of "the fate

of the Arabic speaking countries."24 Within this context, the Bloc saw the Iraqi protests

not as pro-German but anticolonial, a mark of pan-Arab solidarity against colonialism

writ large, not only British colonialism. In an April meeting with Engert, Quwatli applied

this logic to Syria’s situation, suggesting that "German propaganda was in a very strong

position because" it promised Syria independence, whereas "the British...had not only

refused to make a similar statement but had apparently promised Turkey slices of

Northern Syria and Iraq in return for Turkish military support." Quwatli said he would

gladly support the Allies if Britain were "to express sympathy with the Arab cause by

23 Engert (CG Beirut) to State, April 28, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:689–699. Vichy apparently enticed Taj al-Din

to return from exile. 24 Engert (CG Beirut) to State, May 4, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:700–701.

76

making definitive promises." For good measure, Quwatli appealed to an Arab trust in

U.S. honor, asking that British guarantees be made "preferably in consultation with the

American Government."25 After the British invasion of Iraq and rising concern over

Vichy in Syria, Quwatli re-emphasized to Engert that "everything could be arranged if

only Great Britain would make a definite statement promising Syria her independence

after the war."26 Even The Times recognized that "Syrians are more anti-French than pro-

German," and indeed the newspaper presented exactly the solution suggested by Quwatli:

"A British declaration in support of Syrian independence and Arab unity would

counterbalance German propaganda."27 Seeing which way the wind was blowing, Taj al-

Din also courted the Allies, denouncing the Axis while also emphasizing his loyalty to

France.28

On June 8, 1941, many Syrians did cooperate with the Allies’ invasion, which

ended with the Vichy French defeat on July 14. 29 Syrians welcomed the prospect of a

new political and economic situation with the arrival of the Allies, with most people

looking forward to British food shipments rather than British troops.30 More interesting to

25 Engert (CG Beirut) to State, April 9, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:695–696. 26 Engert (CG Beirut) to State, May 4, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:700–701. 27 “Conditions in Syria,” The Times, May 26, 1941. Indeed, having failed to secure the “rally” of French

military officers to Charles de Gaulle’s cause, the “Free” French representative in Cairo, General Georges

Catroux, agreed with certain British officials who theorized that a promise of independence to Syria and

Lebanon might make a Free French occupation of the Levant easier. Cf. Martin L. Mickelsen, “Another

Fashoda: The Anglo-Free French Conflict over the Levant, May-September 1941,” Revue Française

D’histoire d’Outre-Mer 63, no. 230 (1976): 77–81; A.B. Gaunson, “Churchill, de Gaulle, Spears and the

Levant Affair, 1941,” The Historical Journal 27, no. 3 (1984): 703–704; A.B. Gaunson, The Anglo-French

Clash in Lebanon and Syria, 1940-45 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 15–22 and 40–42. 28 On June 5 Taj al-Din referred to himself as one who has “been loyal to France”: Engert (CG Beirut) to

State, June 5, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:721. According to his rivals, Taj al-Din received subsidies from the

French government: Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 49. 29 “Allied Forces March into Syria,” The Times, June 9, 1941; C.L. Sulzberger, “Turkish Frontier

Reached,” New York Times, June 11, 1941; “Syrians Help British Flier,” New York Times, June 13, 1941;

“Escape in Arab Disguise,” The Times, September 5, 1941; “Free French in Syria - A Useful Naval Force,”

The Times, May 15, 1942. 30 “Within Sight of Damascus,” The Times, June 11, 1941; “Free French and Syria,” The Times, July 1,

1941.

77

Syrian nationalists, however, was the proclamation issued by the Free French

representative in the Near East, General Georges Catroux, issued at the start of the Allied

invasion:

I come to put an end to the regime of the mandate and to proclaim you free and

independent. You will therefore be from henceforward sovereign and independent

peoples and you will be able either to form yourselves into separate states or to unite into

a single state. ...France declares you independent by the voice of her sons who are

fighting for her life and for the liberty of the world.31

Perhaps more forcefully, on July 1, after Allied forces had recaptured Damascus, Free

French General Legentilhomme "announced to members of the Syrian Government in

Damascus that Syria is now independent, and that the French mandate is cancelled."32

Taken at face value, Catroux and Legentilhomme seemed to have voided France’s

mandate over the Levantine states and declared each of them independent. In exchange

for their military support, the British had insisted on a clear declaration of independence

for the Levant states.33

Nestled in Catroux’s statement, however, was the caveat that “your statute of

independence and sovereignty will be guaranteed by a treaty in which our mutual

relations will be defined. This treaty will be negotiated as soon as possible between your

representatives and myself.”34 Such a treaty had torpedoed the 1936 independence

proposal, with the National Bloc unwilling to countenance a treaty which codified French

influence in an independent Syria. As early as June 24, when de Gaulle wrote Catroux his

31 Text transmitted in Kirk (Minister to Egypt, Cairo) to State, June 8, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:726–727. 32 “Free French and Syria.” 33 Mickelsen, “Another Fashoda,” 77–78 and 84; Gaunson, “Churchill, de Gaulle, Spears and the Levant

Affair, 1941,” 702–705. 34 Text transmitted in Kirk (Minister, Cairo) to State, June 8, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:726. De Gaulle used

similar language in a letter written to Jamil Mardam, a Bloc activist and former Premier during the Bloc’s

time in power in the late 1930s, writing that Catroux’s declaration would recognize “before the people of

the Levant and the statute, guaranteed by treaty, of sovereign and independent people”; Charles de Gaulle

to Jamil Mardam, June 6, 1941, quoted in Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 44. Reportedly, de Gaulle even met

with Mardam and other Bloc leaders, stressing “that the attainment of independence was to be without

prejudice to French interests” (p. 45).

78

instructions for carrying out his duties as “Delegate-General” (a semantic replacement for

'High-Commissioner') to Syria and Lebanon, the real intentions of a prolonged

independence process emerged. In his letter, de Gaulle wrote of how the mandates "must

be brought to an end." Whereas the declarations had said the mandates ended

immediately, de Gaulle now presented ending the mandate as a future event.35 Moreover,

early journalistic readings of the statement demonstrated more nuance than Catroux or

Legentilhomme appeared to articulate. The Times presented the statement not as a

declaration of independence but a recognition of “the claim of Syria and the Lebanon to

independence.”36 The New York Times, applauding the statement because it “was devoid

of ambiguity and did not lend itself to misinterpretation,” called it merely an “assurance

of independence,” a future promise rather than a fait accompli.37 Syrians presented their

straightforward interpretation of the text as an anticolonial one.

The puppet regime set up by Vichy in April presented itself as the independent

government of Syria upon Allied victory. When Allied forces entered Damascus on June

23, they found the French flag lowered from official buildings, and the regime

proclaimed that "internal matters hitherto under French supervision should henceforth be

controlled by the Syrian authorities. Amnesty was granted to political prisoners."38 After

the disillusionment of the failure to secure independence as promised during the First

35 De Gaulle to Catroux, June 24, 1941, reprinted in “Government of the Levant,” The Times, July 12,

1941. He used the same phrasing in a speech at the University of Damascus on July 29; quoted in Mardam

Bey, Syria’s Quest, 46. The Times echoed this ambiguity in late July, talking about an alternative to

independence (supposedly already proclaimed in the decrees) “of letting the Syrians and Lebanese conduct

their own reforms by according them their promised independence as soon as possible”; “Taking over in

Syria,” The Times, July 25, 1941. 36 “Liberating Syria,” The Times, June 9, 1941. 37 “Free Syria Pledge Winning the Arabs,” New York Times, June 15, 1941. 38 A.C. Sedgwick, “Free French in Van in Damascus Fight,” New York Times, June 25, 1941.

79

World War, declaratory rhetoric did not satisfy Syrians, so that by June 15 Damascene

papers questioned the sincerity of Allied enticements in the proclamation.39

After the British and Free French completed their occupation of Syria and

Lebanon, the difference between the declaration of immediate independence and reality

quickly became clear. The Times articulated it succinctly, noting that "the effective

independence of Syria" must await negotiation and definition, at least during the war,

which "will doubtless require the presence of British and French units for the duration."40

After the armistice, Syria and Lebanon remained under martial law, with two layers of

authority placed over the Syrian and Lebanese governments: Catroux as Delegate-

General, and then the British military command. At this point, the Syrian and Lebanese

governments' "powers [had] been sharply curtailed."41 By August 15, the French had

returned control of Damascus' police to the Syrian administration, but the New York

Times still speculated that with large continuity of Vichy officials under the Allied

regime, Syrians must have "[begun] to wonder whether there had been a change of

regime."42 Coming just as the Allies appeared to settle in for a long occupation, the

Atlantic Charter must have seemed like another empty diplomatic promise from the

West. Like Catroux’s statement, the Charter’s clear language was soon contradicted by

Allied policy.

Independent Syria?: September 1941-1942

39 “Syrian Press Hits British,” New York Times, June 15, 1941; “Progress in Syria,” The Times, July 7,

1941. 40 “Terms for Syria,” The Times, July 12, 1941. The author’s assumption conveys the arrogance and the

disproportionate power of the European Anglo-French Allies over the Syrian anticolonialists. 41 “Syria and Lebanon Become Fortress,” New York Times, July 21, 1941. 42 “Vichy Aides’ Ouster Pleasing to Syrians,” New York Times, August 17, 1941.

80

The Allied government soon ruled out installing the volatile National Bloc for its

nominally independent government of Syria. Instead, it turned to Taj al-Din, the reliable

French collaborator.43 Thus, Taj al-Din emerged as the President-designate of an

“independent” Syria on September 20, 1941, with a designated government under an old

ally of the assassinated Shahbandar.44 Armed with a Syrian administration to match an

ostensibly independent Syrian state, Catroux then proclaimed Syrian independence again

at Taj al-Din's inauguration ceremony on September 27 in Damascus.45

Taj al-Din proceeded to use Syria's declared independence as a weapon to

legitimize his rule. Taj al-Din's administration issued stamps with September 27 as the

date of Syrian independence.46 Then, in 1942 Taj al-Din urged Syrians to celebrate

September 27 as the first anniversary of independence.47 Beyond legitimating the

government over which he presided, the use of September 27 also connected Syrian

independence with Taj al-Din personally, a brilliant appropriation of forces outside his

43 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 47–50. Mardam Bey’s claims are unsubstantiated, and he vilifies both

French and British objectors to his narrative: cf. Mickelsen, “Another Fashoda,” 97–98; Gaunson,

“Churchill, de Gaulle, Spears and the Levant Affair, 1941,” 709 and 711–712. Observers from other Arab

nations registered their discontent with the outcome in contemporary news accounts: “Arabs See British

Pledging Freedom,” New York Times, September 21, 1941. The Times, supporting Taj al-Din’s

appointment, acknowledged his personal friendship with the new French military commander, General

Collet, and his cited pro-Allied statements in May and June as a confidence booster for the Allies; “Settling

down in Syria,” The Times, October 6, 1941. 44 “The First President of Syria,” The Times, September 20, 1941; “Nationalist Group in Syrian Cabinet,”

New York Times, September 22, 1941. Hakim’s previous political life discussed in Khoury, Syria and the

French Mandate, 595. 45 Engert (CG Beirut) to State, September 28, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:786–787; “Independence of Syria,” The

Times, September 29, 1941. 46 La Bue Applegate, “The New Issues Of Many Lands: Syria and Lebanon Celebrate Their Independence,”

New York Times, July 5, 1942, sec. recreation gardens: “Syria and Lebanon, which the occupying Free

French authorities proclaimed republics last year, have each released postage and air-mail stamps

commemorating the ‘Proclamation de l’Independence,’ the inscription being both in French and Arabic.

...The Syrian items carry the date ‘27 Septembre 1941.’” 47 “Syria Appeals to U.S. to Recognize Status,” New York Times, September 12, 1942: “the President

appealed to all Syrians in the United States to observe the day [September 27, 1942]. Syria’s independence

was proclaimed on September 27, 1941.” Majid Khadduri, describing the evolution of Syria’s

constitutional state since 1951, also cites this date as Syria’s independence from the French mandate: Majid

Khadduri, “Constitutional Development in Syria: With Emphasis on the Constitution of 1950,” Middle East

Journal 5, no. 2 (Spring 1951): 147.

81

own political control to further his personal power. In one of his many attempts to gain

U.S. recognition, Taj al-Din also claimed that “we Syrians have the right to expect early

recognition of our independent national status as compatible with the spirit of the Atlantic

Charter.”48 While diplomats did not grant Taj al-Din’s demands, other Syrians would use

a similar line of reasoning, focusing on the need for a concrete transfer of power to match

France’s declaration of Syrian independence.

Catroux's declaration again highlighted the gulf between declaratory and actual

policy, as he added to the June 8 declaration that "the Syrian Government will begin for

the first time to assume and practise...the rights and prerogatives of an independent

sovereign State." However, the declaration then delineated severe limitations on this

supposed sovereignty, as "Syrian sovereign and independent rights are subject to

reservations necessitated by the war between the Allies and Germany," "it is required that

Syrian policy should conform closely with that of the Allies," "the Syrian Government

will place their forces at the Allies' disposal," and "the Allied Command will dispose...of

Syrian communications, aerodromes, and harbours." Taj al-Din accepted all these

limitations on his “independent” state as "a solemn proof that France was always

generous and an emancipator of nations."49

The gap between the reality of power and the declaratory transfer of “authority”

invited cynicism.50 Almost as soon as Taj al-Din assumed the presidency, The Times

noted in an October 6 analysis that Syrians "do not expect the grant of full independence

during the war, and realistically observe that it would not mean anything while the

48 “Syria Appeals to U.S. to Recognize Status.” 49 “Independence of Syria”; further details provided by the Consul-General’s notes on the speech: Engert

(CG Beirut) to Secretary, September 28, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:786–787. 50 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 50 articulates the cynicism aroused by this duplicity: “strict military control

operating within the context of pledges for freedom and sovereignty...becoming increasingly unpalatable.”

82

country is necessarily under military occupation." Even this British newspaper

recognized that "admittedly [independence] does not mean very much of a change

immediately." The Times justified the unilateral nomination of a president by the French,

answering Syrian and Arab criticisms calling for the return of constitutional government,

arguing that the Bloc's allegedly pro-Axis sentiments made its inclusion in a decision for

Syria's governance too risky. More tellingly, The Times observed that Taj al-Din was

most likely "to negotiate a treaty with the Free French safeguarding the post-war position

of France," whereas more radical nationalists would dispute both the need for such a

treaty and France's hoped-for neocolonial provisions such as those enjoyed by Britain in

its treaty relationships with Iraq and Egypt.51

The Times' analysis proved surprisingly prescient. Since the fall of France obliged

the British and the Free French to employ such tactics as promising independence in

order to take control of France's own possessions, the whole political calculus of Syrian

anticolonialism shifted. The proclamation forced a shift in France's own declaratory

policy, from promising future independence to asserting present Syrian independence,

making the maintenance of a facade of independence more difficult to manage

rhetorically. The Free French forced themselves into a political environment with all

discussion re-oriented immediately toward a postcolonial situation rather than a road

towards independence. With Taj al-Din, the French hoped to secure agreements for a

postcolonial situation politically dominated by France.

51 “Settling down in Syria”; Churchill used the Iraqi and Egyptian examples repeatedly to reassure de

Gaulle and the French that his support for Syrian “independence” did not seek to disrupt France’s political

prerogatives there, failing to appreciate the rising tide of anticolonial nationalism which had manifested

itself already in the form of the March coup in Iraq. See Gaunson, “Churchill, de Gaulle, Spears and the

Levant Affair, 1941,” 703; Gaunson, Anglo-French Clash, 77–78 and 186–187 .

83

Taj al-Din had tied his political star to recognition of his Syrian regime as

independent. Taj al-Din was most persistent in his efforts to secure U.S. recognition of

Syria as an independent state, lobbying the U.S. consul-general in Beirut on numerous

occasions throughout his tenure.52 Taj al-Din declared in an interview with the New York

Times on November 7, 1941, that Syria had achieved “concrete, practical

independence.”53 The French settler press in Beirut highlighted the independence

transfers in both Syria and Lebanon and celebrated the French-appointed leaders.54

Throughout 1942, Taj al-Din would badger U.S. diplomats about recognizing his

regime.55 He attempted to curry favor to sweeten that concession at every turn.56 Taj al-

52 For the first time on October 22 and 24, 1941: Engert (CG Beirut) to State, October 24, 1941, FRUS

1941, 3:793. He later tried to curry favor for recognition with the United States, asserting that “Syria stands

unreservedly alongside the United States and its Allies in the conflict that has broken out in the Far East...

We associate ourselves heart and soul and with our full resources with the efforts of the United States to

liberate humanity from the forces of evil and to restore their liberties to countries robbed of them.” “Syria’s

Stand Taken with U.S. in Orient,” New York Times, December 19, 1941. Likewise, Taj al-Din wrote to

Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles in late December 1941, “pledging loyalty to the United States in

the war,” desiring that the United States recognize Syrian sovereignty; Summer Welles to President

Roosevelt, “Summary of Correspondence,” n.d., OF 1922 (Cornelius von Engert), FDRPL. After the U.S.

invasion of North Africa in November 1942, Taj al-Din made the rather un-sovereign statement that “Syria

will put its resources at the disposal of the United States ‘until the day of victory’”; “U.S. Hailed in Levant

as Arabs’ Liberator,” New York Times, November 23, 1942. Likewise, on December 31, 1942, Taj al-Din

sent a telegram to Roosevelt “embodying wishes for the New Year and hopes that year will mark victory

and restore to people all rights and liberties”; “Summary of Telegrams to President Roosevelt on the New

Year,” n.d., OF 2418 (Syria), FDRPL. 53 “Syria President Bids Arabs Aid the Allies,” New York Times, November 8, 1941. 54 “A Damas, samedi l’indépendance syrienne sera proclamée par le général Catroux et saluée par 21 coups

de canon,” La Syrie et le Proche-Orient, September 27, 1941; “Indépendance de la Syrie,” La Syrie et le

Proche-Orient, September 28, 1941; Longin, “Il faut remonter à 1920 pour trouver pareille liesse,” La Syrie

et le Proche-Orient, September 30, 1941; “En l’honneur du Cheikh Tageddine,” La Syrie et le Proche-

Orient, October 1, 1941. 55 The regime pounced on the appointment of a new Consul-General in June 1942 to make its claim again;

Gwynn (CG Beirut) to State, July 13, 1942, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers,

1942, vol. 4, The Near East and Africa (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office,

1964), 598. 56 Offered “to make any provisional arrangement we wished to safeguard all American interests until after

the war” in February 1942: Engert (CG Beirut) to State, February 6, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:643; offered tax

exemption for American hospitals in August 1942: Gwynn (CG Beirut) to State, August 21, 1942, FRUS

1942, 4:656–657; Gwynn (CG Beirut) to State, August 31, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:659; Gwynn (CG Beirut)

to State, September 12, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:659. Syrians used sheer flattery, too: Taj al-Din’s Foreign

Minister, Fares al-Khoury (a once and future National Bloc leader) explained his anxiety to receive U.S.

recognition “as it would, he said, be the only one of any real value”; Gwynn (CG Beirut) to State, August

21, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:657.

84

Din also tried to play the various Powers against one another, such as when he suggested

that U.S. recognition could delegitimize German propaganda claiming U.S. non-

recognition stemmed from Zionist schemes for Syria.57 U.S. refusals of recognition

testified to the bankruptcy of claims of real Syrian independence, as the new consul-

general in June 1942 noted, writing “I see no urgency in going further toward recognizing

an independence which is fictitious.”58

Nonetheless, by making claims based on Great Power policy declarations and

attempting to create competition among them, Taj al-Din used the limited assets he held

to legitimate his own regime and thus his own power. Unfortunately for him, Taj al-Din’s

French patrons had less power amid the political and military constraints of the war. The

fall of France rendered the Free French militarily weak, forcing them to rely on British

support and follow British policies such as declaring independence. By late 1941, the

Bloc had already reorganized and remobilized under Quwatli, and it no longer pursued

57 Engert (CG Beirut) to State, February 6, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:643. The British urged recognition as early

as November 1941, citing the Atlantic Charter. An aide-mémoire argued for U.S. recognition of Syria and

Lebanon since “such a decision would be in accordance with the spirit of principles one and two of the

Atlantic Charter, and would be a powerful aid to the stability of the Syrian Government and of conditions

generally in the Near Eastern theatre of war”: “The British Embassy to the Department of State: Aide-

Mémoire,” November 18, 1941, FRUS 1941, 3:803. The State Department replied with a November 29

press release acknowledging U.S. sympathy for Syrian and Lebanese independence, particularly in the form

of those regimes’ “full enjoyment of sovereign independence,” implying (correctly) the non-independence

of the formally-independent regimes: “Press Release Issued by the Department of State, November 29,

1941,” FRUS 1941, 3:807–808. 58 Gwynn (CG Beirut) to State, June 25, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:650. Sumner Welles conveyed the same

analysis to Roosevelt in a September 2 memo, reiterating U.S. support for Syrian and Lebanese

independence, but recognizing “we are faced with the fact that neither Syria nor the Lebanon in actuality

enjoys an independent status,” with governments appointed by the Free French which “exercise only a very

limited degree of sovereign independence.” Welles feared associating the United States with such

mystification “when it is well known throughout the Near East that the two Governments have very limited

powers,” and as such “we would be participating in an action which would not only be contrary to the facts

in the case but would also, I believe, lower our prestige with the Arab peoples and therefore not serve to

encourage their support for the United Nations.” As a compromise Welles suggested elevating the U.S.

consul-general in Syria and Lebanon to a Diplomatic Agent, as had been done in formally sovereign but

colonially dominated Morocco and Egypt, in order “to impress the peoples of Syria and the Lebanon that

we sympathized in principle with their desires for independence and are glad to accord recognition of their

progress in that direction”: Sumner Welles to President Roosevelt, September 2, 1942, 2–4, OF 2418

(Syria), FDRPL.

85

the moderate policy of the 1930s. In March-April 1941, it had proved its ability to

destabilize an unsuitable regime. With the new European overlords already divided

between British and Gaullist French, and with the economic situation remaining unstable,

Quwatli and the Bloc saw further opportunities to destabilize the situation and force a

change. Once the United States entered the war and assumed ever-greater military

supremacy, Syria could appeal to its declarations to justify its own vision of Syrian self-

determination and independence. While by no means the only tool, the Atlantic Charter

would reappear in Syrian anticolonial rhetoric throughout the war as activists sought to

secure U.S. support against French ambitions to continue domination.

Syrian Appeals to the Charter, 1943-1945: Crises and Opportunities

Syrian use of the Charter interacted dynamically with appeals to other more direct

documents, namely the declaration of independence from June 1941. A London Times

editorial lauded Syrians who viewed Catroux's declarations as "a promissory note" to be

cashed at the end of the war, with the current limited independence as an upfront

"payment on account."59 Appeals to the Charter were only one example of Syrians

playing the various Allies against one another. Philip Khoury notes that "the veteran

nationalists did not have to make any further concessions to France," simply turning to

the British or Americans when French terms displeased them.60 As the war progressed,

the growing military preponderance of the United States made it an attractive ally, and its

59 “Settling down in Syria.” 60 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 618.

86

anticolonial idealism as expressed in the Atlantic Charter provided a language Syrians

could easily appropriate.61

One Syrian, the Damascene judge Mohammed Aziz El-Khani, appealed to

President Roosevelt directly, handing a letter to the President’s representative in the

Middle East, Patrick Hurley. Hurley indicated that the letter “is typical of the expressions

I have received from both Moslem and Christian Arabs,” noting that “almost invariably

the members of the Moslem faith with whom I have conversed have shown an

understanding of the principles by which you are actuated and have expressed complete

confidence in your leadership.”62 The Atlantic Charter figured among those principles,

since El-Khani explained to the President Syrians’ desire “to obtain their complete rights

in the Peace Convention,” a desire he portrayed “in the shade of principles of justice and

liberty emanating from the spirit of the Atlantic Charter.”63 Indicative of these citations,

El-Khani immediately followed this invocation with an appeal for U.S. support, noting

that achievement of these principles would depend on “your actual support on which our

nation put all her hopes to attain her desires relying on your love of supporting the

friendly nations like Syria.”64 El-Khani moreover offered a flattering image of the United

States, claiming rather grandiosely that “the existence of the Republic of the United

States of America…is the strongest guarantee for the success of the principles of truth,

justice and liberty, which is sought by the Arab Moslems and which is the basis of their

61 By mid-1942, the U.S. Consul-General recognized the precariousness of the U.S. position in such an

environment, observing that different parties, using various statements to further their own agendas, “at

variance put a different interpretation on the phrase and denounce the others and appeal for justice”: Engert

(CG Beirut) to State, June 6, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:648. 62 Brig. Gen. Patrick Hurley to President Roosevelt, May 20, 1943, OF 2418 (Syria), FDRPL. 63 El-Khani to President Roosevelt, April 8, 1943, 2–3. FDRPL. 64 El-Khani to President Roosevelt, April 8, 1943, 3. FDRPL.

87

sacred religious teachings.”65 Roosevelt’s reply merely expressed hope “that the day is

not far off when the Syrians will enjoy the great blessings of full independence,”

indicating the limitations of appealing to the Atlantic Charter for concrete results.66

Nonetheless, El-Khani’s letter reveals how political actors, far from the centers of

imperial power, could mobilize resources such as the Charter to secure audiences for their

proposals.

In diplomatic and popular appeals, the Atlantic Charter recurred repeatedly in

attempts to involve the U.S. government in Syrian affairs, or even change U.S. policy in

the Middle East. Atlantic Charter rhetoric appeared most forcefully during crises, which

the independent governments of Syria and Lebanon faced in November 1943 and May

1945. In appeals during these crises Syrians cited their desire for a world order where the

Atlantic Charter would protect their right to sovereignty against French interference.

Later in the war, when the U.S. government shifted toward greater support of the Zionist

project in Palestine, Syrian activists increasingly turned their Atlantic Charter toward

opposing that policy.

Situating the crises of 1943 and 1945 requires a continuation of the narrative of

Syrian nationalism during the war. After the Allied conquest of Syria and the installation

of the Taj al-Din government in September 1941, the ingredients for political unrest

remained. First of all, economic deprivation continued, providing the National Bloc with

the grounds it needed to mobilize popular protest against the French-backed government.

Bread scarcity caused riots in Hama and Homs as early as September 1941.67 With

65 El-Khani to President Roosevelt, April 8, 1943, 1–2. FDRPL. 66 President Roosevelt to Mohammed Aziz El-Khani, “Summary of Correspondence,” n.d., OF 2418

(Syria), FDRPL. 67 “Settling down in Syria.”

88

wartime occupation continuing into 1942 and the Nazi drive into Egypt, the Allied

pressures on Syria only increased after occupation, providing plenty of fodder for the

Bloc’s opposition to the Taj al-Din regime.68 More importantly for the Bloc’s political

purposes, Taj al-Din’s continuing refusal to challenge the French to restore constitutional

government and sovereignty rendered him increasingly unpopular. Taj al-Din exasperated

even his own supporters, with pro-European and anti-Bloc prime ministers resigning in

April and then December 1942, leaving office angry about their hands being tied by the

Taj al-Din.69

Backed by anger over food shortages and Taj al-Din’s complicity with France, the

National Bloc demanded that the French restore the constitutional regime which had

governed Syria until the outbreak of war in 1939, knowing it could win any election.70

The German offensive into Egypt provided General Catroux with a pretext to delay the

68 The Anglo-Franco-Syrian “Wheat Office” set up after the Allied invasion proved problematic, since it

attempted to buy Syrian wheat at deflated prices, prompting landowners to smuggle their harvests to

Turkey for higher prices. The fact that the Syrian administration contained large landowners, including the

supply minister himself, who circumvented the system, did not bolster its public legitimacy: Gwynn (C

Beirut) to Secretary, July 22, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1964, 4:603; Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 595–

596. 69 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 54 and Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 595 assert that al-Hakim

accused Taj al-Din “of gross interference in his office’s affairs, of maintaining an unnecessarily expensive

official establishment, and of nepotism.” On his resignation in December 1942, premier Husni al-Barazi

asked a Damascene audience, “What sort of an independence should [the Arab] countries recognise? ...In

the name of security [the Allies] have stolen our authority. ...They pretend they have given us our

independence, but I proclaim in the words of King Faisal I: ‘Independence is taken and never given’”:

Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 68–69. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 596 attributes this to al-

Barazi’s frustration at French inaction over economic problems. But al-Barazi’s complaints to the U.S.

Consul General seem to reflect deeper disillusionment: “Premier [Barazi] has consistently insisted, he

said...that Syrian independence is not real; that the President’s French-granted autocratic legislative and

executive powers are exercised under the firm control of General Collet with General Catroux’s support

and General de Gaulle’s approval; That consequently such important matters as national defense, police

sûreté, censorship, supply services and intérêts communs (revenues from customs, oil refinery, monopolies,

et cetera) are in fact controlled by the French with scantiest regard for and no accounting to the Ministry;

That, in short, autocratic Vichy-French mandatory control has been replaced by one even more autocratic

and less acceptable exercised by Free France”: Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, December 5, 1942,

FRUS 1942, 4:674. 70 Engert (CG Beirut) to Secretary, March 3, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:644–645.

89

return to constitutional government, but once the threat to Egypt passed, the Bloc

escalated its pressure tactics.71

Again, Sheikh Taj al-Din proved as crafty as ever, arranging for a majority of

deputies to elect him president should the French recall the 1939 parliament.72 His Allied

sponsors foiled his plan, however, as the struggles within the French leadership after the

U.S. invasion of North Africa provided another distraction for Catroux to justify delaying

any change to the constitutional basis for the Syrian administration. In the meantime, Taj

al-Din himself fell ill and died in the first days of 1943. His January 17 death left a

political vacuum in Syria, as Catroux conceded that elections needed to be organized but

remained in Algiers rather than return to the Levant to authorize them.73

With Taj al-Din’s exit, the field finally opened for the National Bloc to take

power in Syria. Just as in March 1941, the Bloc appropriated bread strikes which erupted

in Damascus to voice their discontent. Rioting crippled Damascus in early February and

then again in late March of 1943.74 While the link is not clear, in the days after the second

strike broke out on March 20, Catroux returned to Syria and began arranging an

election.75 The Bloc had forced the French regime to concede self-government on

nationalist terms. Syria’s elections did not constitute self-determination in a purely

democratic sense, for as observed earlier, the National Bloc reflected a clear elite

landowning and mercantile class interest. The elections to be held in July 1943 would

71 Wadsworth (Diplomatic Agent and Consul-General [hereafter DACG] Beirut) to Secretary, November

20, 1942, FRUS 1942, 4:668. 72 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 67. 73 Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, March 12, 1943, Foreign Relations of the United States:

Diplomatic Papers, 1943, vol. 4, The Near East and Africa (Washington, D.C.: United States Government

Printing Office, 1963), 959. 74 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 599–600; Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 70, 74; Wadsworth

(DACG Beirut) to Secretary, March 23, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:965. 75 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 73; cf. Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, March 25, 1943, FRUS

1943, 4:965–966.

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likely not be free and fair. Catroux noted, cynically, that “were elections to be held,

political rivalries between professional politicians would play a controlling role in the

cities” while “in the country districts the same leading landed families which had elected

their representatives to former parliaments would control results.”76 Quwatli counted on

this strategy, as the Bloc had in elections in the 1930s. The strategy worked again,

leading to a landslide Bloc and pro-independence victory.77

Quwatli became the first elected president of Syria in August 1943, and he

immediately began appropriating the Atlantic Charter. At his inauguration in August

1943 he outlined his intention to develop “Syria’s international relations in accordance

with the principles of the Atlantic Charter.”78 Unlike Taj al-Din, Quwatli used the Charter

in the same way the United States did, namely as a rhetorical tool outlining declaratory

policy. By claiming to align Syrian foreign policy with the Charter, Quwatli could lay

claim to guarantees offered by the Charter to self-determination as well as hold more

powerful states to a diplomatic moral high ground, a rhetorical space within which to

compensate for Syria’s weakness. As early as October 1943 Quwatli expressed his hope

that “further steps…be taken progressively to apply Atlantic Charter principles to Levant

76 Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, March 12, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:958. This evaluation of

National Bloc “democracy” also came in “Syria and the Lebanon - The Bid for Independent Status,” The

Times, January 20, 1944. 77 Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 602. Quwatli and the Bloc made the depth of France’s defeat in

the July 1943 elections clear on the convention of the new parliament August 17. The Syrians eliminated

France’s special box in the chambers, relegating them to the diplomatic box with the other foreign

observers, with no special status. The Syrian band only played half of “La Marseillaise” when the French

delegation entered the reception afterward: Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 603–604; ceremony

also recounted in Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, August 18, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:985–987.

Wadsworth also noted that the French were received among other diplomats, not in a special box.

Moreover, at the reception, the “French were told constitutional Chief of State did not return calls. Further,

Quwatly parliamentary address was seemingly pointed in referring to Free French, not France; and in

conversation French Damascus residency is now referred to as the Ambassade” (p. 986). 78 Wadsworth took particular note of it: “High lights [from Quwatli’s speech] were reference to Atlantic

Charter”: Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, August 18, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:986; cf. Mardam Bey,

Syria’s Quest, 79.

91

States,” appropriating the Charter as a guarantee of greater sovereignty and challenging

the Allies to live up to their declarations.79

The election of nationalists to power in Lebanon in September would set the stage

for the first major confrontation between the French authorities and the Levantine

states.80 The Lebanese parliament voted to expunge their constitution’s specific reference

to France’s mandatory role, eliminating any indigenous legal recognition of the Mandate.

Catroux’s replacement in the Levant, General Jean Helleu, did not respond kindly, having

the Lebanese President and Cabinet arrested on November 11. France delayed

information leaking out from Lebanon, postponing the popular response in Syria. In this

case, as in prior strikes and riots, popular anger outpaced government elites. One deputy

noted that deputies faced “public pressure for immediate demonstrations.”81 Though

“unruly mob pressure” perhaps incentivized Syrian mobilization in support of Lebanese

nationalists, the National Bloc used the moment as it had in March 1941 and 1943.82

79 Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, October 24, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:999. 80 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 94–96 asserts Syria’s innocence regarding the outbreak of the Lebanese

crisis in November 1943, but this is seemingly contradicted by Wadsworth on November 8: “November 7

Lebanese Premier and Vice Premier met with Syrian Premier and Foreign Minister at Chtaura [Lebanon]

where full Syrian support of proposed Lebanese action was assured. Syrian Premier confirmed this

specifically to Farrell [second secretary, permanent at Damascus] same evening in Damascus, adding that

inept French policy has unconsciously aided Lebanese policy by consolidating Lebanese public opinion

behind it.”; Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, November 8, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1003. Syrians seem

to be playing all against each other: “Belgian Chargé d’Affaires informs me Syrian Foreign Minister stated

textually in recent conversation ‘After mature consideration we have decided without reservation to throw

our lot (marcher) with Anglo-Saxon bloc’” (p. 1006). 81 Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, November 17, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1034. 82 Bloc leaders were able to prevail on the student protestors to remain orderly and calm, allowing the

Syrian police forces to project an image of control, excluding French intervention and valorizing the

regime’s competency. The strikes remained within ideal bounds, with demonstrations and a general strike

remaining peaceful on November 15, and ending when Quwatli called for its end to prevent destabilizing

the government: Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 96, 98–99; Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary,

November 17, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1034–1035. Discussing Syrian demands with the U.S. Consul-General,

the Bloc’s Foreign Minister asserted an implicit control over the unrest, allowing him to threaten that unless

the Lebanese government was restored, “there will be more and far more serious trouble in Syria”:

Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, November 22, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1041.

92

Throughout the Lebanese crisis, Syrian protestors appealed to the Atlantic Charter

to decry French action and to call for U.S. intervention against France. Most notably, on

the evening of November 13 a delegation of about one thousand Damascene students

demonstrated at Allied consulates. At the U.S. Legation, “five student spokesmen

presented [a] written protest condemning France’s acts in Lebanon adducing Atlantic

Charter.”83 A Damascus newspaper associated with the Bloc, Al-Insha, asserted on

November 23, 1943, that “the Atlantic Charter, by recognizing the right of all nations to

their independence, has effectively abolished the Mandate.”84 Catroux attempted to use

the Charter differently, taking up Churchill’s line citing the Charter as a justification for

empire, but this does not seem to have made any impact among Syrians.85

France’s use of blatant force aroused intense displeasure in the Allied capitals,

and this displeasure more than soaring appeals to the Atlantic Charter led the British and

Americans to force the French to restore the Lebanese government.86 Having lost its

ability to compel compliance by force, the French military quickly concluded agreements

transferring most non-military authority to the Syrian and Lebanese governments.87

These victories emboldened both the Syrian and Lebanese governments, which presented

83 Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, November 17, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1034. 84 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 108. 85 “Eighteen Listed as Killed in Lebanese Riots,” Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1943. Catroux, in a

November 19, 1943 report to the French Committee of National Liberation (government-in-exile),

“recognized British interests throughout the Arab world, Britain’s pledges to native peoples under the

Atlantic Charter, and the necessity of maintaining peaceful conditions in the strategic Middle East.” 86 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 107. The United States showed much greater willingness to pressure France

than its closer British ally, despite similar repression in India. 87 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 112–113; Farrell (Chargé Damascus) to Secretary, December 24, 1943,

FRUS 1943, 4:1054. The December 23, 1943, agreement transferred all administration save customs and

the native levies, the Troupes Spéciales, from French to Syrian and Lebanese control effective January 1,

1944. The failure to secure control of the armed Troupes Spéciales would prove costly over the next two

years, as the omission left out perhaps the most fundamental aspect of governmental power: the ability to

monopolize violence within a territory. Syrian leaders already looked toward a confrontation over this, with

the new prime minister insisting that Syria would refuse to conclude a treaty with France before the transfer

of all powers to the Syrian government in speeches on November 23 and December 1, 1943: Mardam Bey,

Syria’s Quest, 107 and 110.

93

a united front against the French.88 The governments continued to voice their goals in the

language of the Atlantic Charter, a rhetoric which had coincided with successfully

drawing the United States into conflict with the French. The Levant states even

heightened the Atlantic Charter rhetoric, invoking the Charter not only as principles but

as aims of a war they wished to join. Hence, the Syrian Foreign Minister told the U.S.

Consul-General in December 1943 that the “Syrian and Lebanese Governments were

considering issuing [a] declaration to effect that they were determined to continue

cooperation with Allied war effort to [the] fullest measure [of] their strength and

resources on [the] basis [of] Atlantic Charter principles,” and hence declare war against

the Axis.89 Although the war declaration did not materialize, the Atlantic Charter

reappeared in anti-French language.

In 1944, as the French continued to hold out for treaties with the Levant states

modeled on the neocolonial treaties Britain had with Egypt and Iraq, the Syrian and

Lebanese governments remained united, hoping to outlast the French until the end of the

war when “we like to believe that the principles of the Atlantic Charter will be applied.”90

This language went back to 1942, when Syrians resisted French insistence on a treaty

with their puppet president Taj al-Din. At that time, Catroux had noted that the Atlantic

Charter had seemed to give rise to hopes among Syrian nationalists, a view with which

88 Syrian-Lebanese cooperation against the French proves the power of anticolonialism, that is, of a

common enemy, to coalesce divergent political groups. Syria and Lebanon cooperated closely throughout

the many conflicts with France, meeting together frequently, beginning October 4, 13, and 20, 1943: cf.

Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 85, 87–89; Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 613. Mardam talked about

their collaboration with Wadsworth on October 10: Wadsworth (CG Beirut) to Secretary, October 11, 1943,

FRUS 1943, 4:996. Syria mimicked the constitutional amendment made by Lebanon which had provoked

the crisis, revising out the mention of France: Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 109–110. Wadsworth took note

of this, saw it as further evidence of Syro-Lebanese cooperation: Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary,

December 17, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1053. 89 Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, December 20, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1053. 90 Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, September 15, 1944, Foreign Relations of the United States:

Diplomatic Papers, 1944, vol. 5, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, The Far East (Washington, D.C.:

United States Government Printing Office, 1965), 779.

94

U.S. Consul-General George Wadsworth concurred. To Catroux’s chagrin, Wadsworth

felt that the Syrian nationalists correctly sensed that a new era had emerged in diplomacy

with the Atlantic Charter at its center. Hence, only a mutually-sought-after treaty “would

seem to be compatible with the Atlantic Charter principle in question” in the new

environment Wadsworth imagined and for which Syrians hoped.91 Along these lines,

Syrian diplomats claimed that a French treaty contradicted “the implied terms of the

Atlantic Charter.”92 Syria claimed it would gladly establish relations with France upon

independence, applying the unspecified “principles of the Atlantic Charter,” like those

Wadsworth mused about in 1942.93

The transfer of most power in 1944 finally convinced the U.S. State Department

to recommend recognizing Syrian independence.94 President Quwatli used the same

Atlantic Charter rhetoric Taj al-Din had used, repeating it at his inauguration. He

portrayed U.S. recognition as “a confirmation of the political traditions of the United

States and of its idealism,” which he traced back to President Wilson’s “principles of

justice for all nations” and the King-Crane commission’s work in 1919. Quwatli then

elevated Roosevelt’s statesmanship, claiming that with “the Atlantic Charter and the Four

Freedoms which you yourself proclaimed you have given a new impetus to the traditional

American policy.”95 Aside from the panegyrics, Quwatli also used the Atlantic Charter

for Syria’s chief geopolitical goal – the prevention of a French treaty. Hence, Quwatli

portrayed Syrian refusals to negotiate with the French before a transfer of arms as merely

91 Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, December 22, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1964, 4:639. 92 “Syria and the Lebanon: II - Arab Political Aims in Damascus,” The Times, January 21, 1944. 93 Phrasing used by Quwatli on two occasions in September 1944: Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary,

September 15, 1944, FRUS 1944, 5:779; Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, September 19, 1944,

FRUS 1944, 5:780. 94 Secretary of State to Wadsworth (DACG Beirut), September 5, 1944, FRUS 1944, 5:774–775. 95 Chucri al-Kuwatly to President Roosevelt, September 19, 1944, 1, OF 2418 (Syria), FDRPL.

95

following “the principles of the common law and the basic rules proclaimed in the course

of this war concerning the law of nations by the Atlantic Charter, the United Nations’

Declaration, and other documents and statements.”96

During the last stages of the war, Quwatli and Syrians would call upon Atlantic

Charter rhetoric again as tensions with France reached a boiling point. After the D-Day

landings and the liberation of Paris in the summer of 1944, de Gaulle’s French

government finally had undeniable international legitimacy and recognition,

strengthening France’s hand against its Syrian challengers.97 After rounds of negotiations

over the transfer of all native troops to the Syrian authorities failed in February, March,

and June 1944, France had no interest in reopening negotiations until it strengthened its

military hand in Syria.98 Throughout early 1945, student protests demanding a national

army and reactive French shows of force ratcheted up tensions in Syria.99

Amid these tensions, Quwatli institutionalized his administration’s appropriation

of the Atlantic Charter by aligning Syria formally with the Allies. Quwatli hoped to gain

a voice at the upcoming San Francisco Conference and achieve a level of security vis-à-

96 al-Kuwatly to President Roosevelt, September 19, 1944, 3–4. FDRPL. 97 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 133–137; Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 618; confirmed by

Spears to Wadsworth on September 15: Wadsworth (DACG Beirut) to Secretary, September 15, 1944,

FRUS 1944, 5:777. Reflecting the power shift, after August 1944 the British would back French demands

for a preferential treaty. 98 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 118–120, 124. 99 By late January and early February, student and worker protests in the urban areas drove on, pressing for

the creation of a Syrian army: C.L. Sulzberger, “French Face New Crisis in Levant As Syria Demands Her

Own Army,” New York Times, January 28, 1945; Sam Brewer, “Arabs Meet Feb. 14 to Organize Union,”

New York Times, February 5, 1945; Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 168 and 172. The Druze leader Sultan al-

Atrash even visited Quwatli on February 2 and offered to lead a revolt against the French: Ibid., 177;

Meanwhile the French massed forces in the Alawite region, and Quwatli received warnings from a French

official about a possible coup, prompting him to request arms from the United States in case of a

confrontation with the French: Wadsworth (Minister [hereafter M] to Syria and Lebanon) to Secretary,

February 21, 1945, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, vol. 8, The Near East

and Africa (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1969), 1048; these events

confirmed in “War Said to Bar Levant Solution,” New York Times, February 22, 1945; Mardam Bey,

Syria’s Quest, 194–195.

96

vis France by joining its own purported security bloc, the new United Nations

Organization. Quwatli had inquired about joining the United Nations alliance in late

February, wanting to know whether or not declarations of war against Germany and

Japan were necessary.100 Finding the answer to be affirmative, Quwatli then quickly

pushed through declarations of war against Germany and Japan on February 26 by a vote

of 214-2.101 Despite fulfilling the Allied requirements for invitation, France was loath to

invite Syria as an equal to the Conference before it had extracted the desired treaty.

Therefore, Quwatli used the gathering of Arab leaders at Cairo creating the Arab League

to lobby for support. With Egyptian pressure as well as help from new diplomatic

contacts in the United States and the Soviet Union, Syria secured an invitation (along

with Lebanon) on March 17.102

The declarations of war increased the popular drive for an army, since “there was

puzzlement in people’s minds about the logic of a declaration of war by a country with no

army of its own,” bringing the failure of France to transfer power over the Troupes

Spéciales to mind.103 While Syria and the other United Nations conferred at San

Francisco, France made its move to force concessions from the Syrians, announcing

moves to reinforce its military contingent in Syria and Lebanon on April 27. Syria was

already reeling from renewed demonstrations in Damascus calling for a national army

after a Druze detachment had deserted the Troupes Spéciales to join the national

100 Wadsworth (M-Syria, Lebanon) to Secretary, February 21, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1047. 101 “Syria at War with the Axis,” The Times, February 27, 1945. Having fulfilled this requirement, Syria

then declared its affirmation of the Declaration by United Nations on March 1: “Adherence by Syria and

Lebanon to the Declaration by United Nations,” Department of State Bulletin, April 1, 1945, 575. 102 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 188–190; also reported in Winant (Ambassador [hereafter A] UK) to the

Secretary, March 17, 1945, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, vol. 1,

General: The United Nations (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1967), 139

note 81. 103 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 182–183.

97

gendarmerie.104 900 French troops arrived in Beirut on May 5, but the Syrians controlled

the release of this news to prevent public uproar.105 By May 14, however, public outcry

had risen to fever pitch with demonstrations in Damascus, and Parliament responded to

public pressure and passed a law depriving any Syrians in the service of other countries

their nationality, attempting to pressure members of the Troupes to desert as the Druze

had.106 The dam burst on May 17 when yet another contingent of French troops arrived at

Beirut, prompting furious protests across Syria’s major towns. Popular anger proved too

powerful for the Bloc to control.107

When the French presented fresh demands for a treaty to the Syrians and

Lebanese on May 18, the attempt at intimidation was not appreciated. The pressure

united the Syrians and Lebanese, who agreed not to negotiate under such conditions.108

Syrian protest demonstrations and strikes paralyzed normal life, focusing anger against

the continued French military presence.109 Syrians prepared for an armed confrontation

with French troops, especially after a confrontation in Aleppo left three French soldiers

dead.110 On May 24, Syrian protestors began guerrilla-like attacks on the French, forcing

them to withdraw from strategic points in Aleppo, Homs, and Hama by May 26. The

104 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 197. 105 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 198. 106 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 199. 107 Wadsworth (M-Syria, Lebanon) to Secretary, May 18, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1079; cf. Lebanese Foreign

Minister Henri Pharaon, quoted in Wadsworth (M-Syria, Lebanon) to Secretary, May 29, 1945, FRUS

1945, 8:1113. 108 The State Department shared this interpretation: Henderson (Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs)

to Secretary, May 16, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1076; Henderson (NEAA) to Truman, May 31, 1945, FRUS

1945, 8:1119. Syrian-Lebanese unity certified by “Tension in Syria and Lebanon,” The Times, May 21,

1945. 109 “Syria and Lebanon Will Resist Force,” New York Times, May 24, 1945. 110 Churchill, speaking in House of Commons, quoted in “Syria and the Lebanon - Mr. Churchill’s Reply to

General de Gaulle,” The Times, June 6, 1945; cf. Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 210.

98

attacks continued in all major cities through May 31.111 From May 29-31, the French

army shelled the Syrian Parliament and various government buildings indiscriminately,

allegedly attempting to kill the National Bloc leaders and the majority of

parliamentarians, who were scheduled to be in session when the attack began.112 French

forces shelled and bombed sites across Damascus and across Syria over the next 48

hours.113 Finally, British forces intervened, ordering the French back into their

barracks.114

Amid the military onslaught, Syrian protestors and diplomats appealed to the

Atlantic Charter, urging the United States to intervene and stop the French attack. On

May 20, just after the French demands became public, a telegram signed from “the

inhabitants of Sulemieh, Syria” bitterly recounted that “the perfidious attitude of France

with respect to Syria and the Lebanon is in contradiction with the principles of the

Atlantic Charter.”115 On May 29, as the French military operation escalated, the U.S.

Embassy received two appeals for U.S. intervention, one signed from “the women of

Syria” charging the United States to “safeguard the principles of the Atlantic

111 Dana Adams Schmidt, “Britain ‘Regrets’ Turmoil in Syria,” New York Times, May 27, 1945; “Both

Sides Tense in Syria, Lebanon,” New York Times, May 28, 1945; “Syrian Conscripts Desert,” New York

Times, May 28, 1945. 112 Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 214; Mardam alleged this on June 3, 1945: “Levant Leaders Say French

Used Lend-Lease Weapons,” New York Times, June 4, 1945. 113 Wadsworth (M-Syria, Lebanon) to Secretary, May 29, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1114. 114 Ultimately this proved for French protection as much as Syrian, as Syrians took vengeance against the

hated French troops. Two African colonial soldiers were killed on June 2: “British Guard French Troops

After Syrians Murder Two,” New York Times, June 3, 1945; Bedouin Arabs asked to massacre barracks at

Kuneitra and Hama: “Levant Leaders Say French Used Lend-Lease Weapons”; at Jerablus on the Turkish

frontier, Syrian townsfolk drove 30 Frenchmen across the border into Turkey after they had opened fire on

Syrian recruits deserting: Dana Adams Schmidt, “French Squadron Vanishes in Syria,” New York Times,

June 21, 1945; “Britain Reassures France on Levant,” New York Times, June 23, 1945; assassination

attempts on French delegate at Aleppo on June 27: “French Aide in Syria Target of Assassins,” New York

Times, June 28, 1945; riots against Frenchmen after accidental death of a little girl in Latakia: “New

Disorders in Syria,” The Times, July 7, 1945. 115 The inhabitants of Sulemieh, Syria to U.S. Mission in Damascus, May 20, 1945, RG 84, Damascus

Classified General Records, 1943-63, Box 5, vol. 3, National Archives and Records Administration

(College Park, MD) [hereafter NARA].

99

Charter…the realization of which you have assumed the responsibility.”116 The other,

from one Khudr Chechakli [sic], asked more forcefully for the United States to “help us

to fight against the French aggression and feel that the terms of the Atlantic Charter are

put into immediate action at this moment.”117 For the May 29 writers especially, the

Atlantic Charter needed to become a living document, bringing tangible results for

survival and the preservation of independence.

While these appeals did not necessarily reach decision makers, other diplomatic

appeals to the Charter did. On May 22, the Deputy Premier of Lebanon dramatically

asked “if millions of dead in the war had been sacrificed in vain and the Atlantic Charter

was a scrap of paper.”118 On May 30, Quwatli sent an angry letter to new U.S. Secretary

of State Edward Stettinius, asking “where now is the Atlantic Charter and the Four

Freedoms?”119 The Egyptian Prime Minister sent a similar letter to Stettinius, tying the

situation in Syria to the Atlantic Charter and to postwar peace, prophesying that “unless

all the United Nations stand by the principles of the Atlantic Charter and by the basis on

which universal peace will be established in the near future the world cannot but doubt

that such a peace may be obtained and that justice may ever triumph.”120

These appeals to Stettinius found an unusually receptive audience because of his

presence in San Francisco at the conference attempting to translate the wartime anti-Axis

alliance into a permanent security organization. Syria and its allies successfully mobilized

significant pressure at the conference, publicizing the messy events in the Levant as an

116 The women of Syria to U.S. Mission in Damascus, May 29, 1945, RG 84, Damascus Classified General

Records, 1943-63, Box 5, vol. 3, NARA. 117 Khudr Chechakli to U.S. Mission in Damascus, May 29, 1945, RG 84, Damascus Classified General

Records, 1943-63, Box 5, vol. 3, NARA. 118 “Syria Asks French to Remove Troops,” New York Times, May 23, 1945. 119 Quwatli, quoted in Henderson (Near Eastern and African Affairs [hereafter NEAA]) to President

Truman, May 31, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1118. 120 Nokrashi (Egyptian PM) to Stettinius, May 31, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1127–1128.

100

ugly image of what would happen without the Atlantic Charter’s guarantees for

sovereignty and independence. Quwatli’s letter explicitly referenced this, asking “what

can we think of San Francisco?” after questioning the Atlantic Charter and the Four

Freedoms.121 The Lebanese Foreign Minister appealed for aid at the conference based on

the Atlantic Charter, “and indicated it was up to the big powers to take a stand on their

fight for independence from French mandatory powers.”122 Syrian “princes” in Los

Angeles during a break from the conference also called, more gently, for U.S.

intervention. Two of the princes “wondered aloud…whether France is transgressing on

the spirit of the [Atlantic] charter with her landings of troops in Syria and The Lebanon,”

and another insisted that “the world is looking to America to carry out the purpose for

which she is waging a bloody war,” that purpose being “the protection of small nations

and the establishment of the Four Freedoms on a permanent basis.”123

More pressing for the United States, the spectacle in Syria threatened to upend the

conference and to mar the new anti-aggression organization from the outset with an

episode of blatant aggression. On May 31, Stettinius felt “the Levant crisis is ‘seriously

disrupting the atmosphere of the Conference’ in San Francisco.”124 Within the State

Department, Foy D. Henderson, director of the State Department’s new Office of Near

Eastern and African Affairs, noted the hypocrisy of the Allies condoning French

aggression in Syria while formulating an anti-aggression pact at San Francisco, urging his

government to pressure the British and French in order to preserve the credibility of the

121 Quwatli, quoted in Henderson (NEAA) to President Truman, May 31, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1118. 122 “French-Arab Fight Spreading in Syria,” New York Times, May 29, 1945. 123 “Syrian Princes Arrive for Los Angeles Visit,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1945. 124 Henderson (NEAA) to President Truman, May 31, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1118.

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new United Nations Organization.125 Henderson accepted the premises of the Syrian

appeals to the Charter, and although his influence was not likely a determining factor, it

does show the capacity for anticolonial rhetoric to become official reality.

In the aftermath of its order to stand down by the British, and adverse world

reaction, France ceded control over the Troupes Spéciales to the Syrian administration in

July.126 Under continued Syrian pressure, the British and French finally withdrew from

Syria on April 17, 1946, with April 17 still celebrated as Syria’s national day.127 While

the Atlantic Charter had not shamed the British, French, or Americans into treating Syria

as the sovereign nation Allied declarations claimed it to be, the Charter did provide a

useful recourse supplemented by other methods of more direct political pressure, such as

strikes and diplomatic maneuvers. Syrian activists placed those powers that accepted the

Charter in the position of either yielding to their own rhetoric or appearing blatantly

hypocritical in a diplomatic environment where the idealistic rhetoric of Allied

declaratory policy had created a certain image the Allies wanted to protect. By affirming

the Charter, Quwatli and others could also lay claim to the guarantees it offered for self-

determination. Most importantly, though, the Charter served as a moral weapon, a high

ground to which Syrians and others could appeal even when their opponents far

outmatched them in military and political power. Even when French troops could run

125 Henderson (NEAA) to Stettinius, May 23, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1093–1094; Zurayk (Syrian Chargé) to

Stettinius, May 25, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1100; Henderson (NEAA) to President Truman, May 31, 1945,

FRUS 1945, 8:1118; Wadsworth (M-Syria, Lebanon) to Secretary, May 31, 1945, FRUS 1945, 8:1125. 126 G.H. Archambault, “France Will Yield on Levant Troops,” New York Times, July 8, 1945; Wadsworth

(M-Syria, Lebanon) to Secretary, July 13, 1945, FRUS 1945, 1969, 8:1157. Transfer of most important

garrisons completed by July 26: “12 Syrian Garrisons Yielded by France,” New York Times, July 27, 1945;

formal transfer completed on July 29: “France Set to Yield Syria Troop Control,” New York Times, July 30,

1945. The French conceded once they realized they had not generated any divison between the Syrians and

Lebanese: “Britain Reassures France on Levant.” 127 “British out of Syria,” New York Times, April 18, 1946; Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 225.

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roughshod over Damascus in the middle of an international peace conference, Syrian

voices could still hold aloft the ideal of the Atlantic Charter.

***

Throughout the Second World War, Syrian nationalist leaders had exploited the

limited openings provided them, whether economic hardship generating discontent or

declarations of liberal international policy which enabled them to contrast Allied

declarations with colonial realities. In so doing, Syrians managed the assets they

possessed even though, until April 17, 1946, they did not maintain anything resembling

military dominance within the territory of Syria. Syrian independence did not result from

Allied magnanimity, but rather from Syrian use of the Allies’ declared magnanimity to

extract tangible concessions. The Atlantic Charter provided one of the tools to help

extract those concessions. In the Syrian case the Charter was certainly not an award of

rights from above. Instead, like independence, it was fought for and fought with.

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Chapter Four

“He had seen it work in the Philippines”1: The Philippines and the Atlantic Charter

When it was issued, the Atlantic Charter attracted almost no attention in the

Philippines. The Atlantic Conference aligning the United States with Britain and the

Conference’s joint warning to Japan aroused great interest, with clear implications for the

Philippines’ geopolitical position vis-à-vis Japan. However, after the Japanese invaded in

December 1941 and forced the Philippines’ self-government regime into U.S. exile in

1942, the Atlantic Charter suddenly entered the Philippine government’s vocabulary.

This chapter will look at Philippine use of the Charter before and after the outbreak of the

Pacific War, breaking roughly into periods of indifference and intense interest.

The chapter attempts to understand the Atlantic Charter’s appearance in

Philippine discourse from the Filipino perspective. Initial Philippine indifference to the

Charter rested on the fact that the promise of self-determination seemed fulfilled in the

archipelago’s self-governing, independence-in-waiting Commonwealth. As such,

Philippine leaders had little reason to point their domestic constitutents toward the

Atlantic Charter, nor much reason to press their colonial overlords with the document.

After the war broke out, the leaders largely lost the ability to communicate to their

constituents, and relied on their U.S. patrons for legitimacy as well as continuance. The

U.S. exile helps explain the Charter’s sudden appearance in Philippine rhetoric, and its

relatively sudden disappearance after the war shifted and the reoccupation began in 1944.

The Charter served as a useful tool for Philippine leaders to legitimize themselves in the

United States, with sympathetic world audiences, and with Filipinos within reach of U.S.

1 Carlos P. Romulo, Mother America: A Living Story of Democracy (Doubleday, Doran & Company,

1943), xiii.

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radio and print propaganda. Due to Philippine President Manuel Quezon’s dominance of

Philippine politics by 1941, having co-opted all potential rivals and won election almost

unopposed, as well as his embodiment of the Philippine government-in-exile in 1942-

1944, this chapter will focus almost exclusively on him and his closest advisors.2 A

paucity of sources available in the United States on Quezon’s competitors has also

restricted this work’s purview. Further research on other Philippine political actors is

needed.

Indifference to the Atlantic Charter: August-December 1941

The revelation of the Atlantic Conference garnered front-page coverage in

Philippine dailies, but the Atlantic Charter itself attracted little attention. The English

Manila Daily Bulletin ran an editorial on the document on August 16, but made no

mention of its third point about self-government.3 A subsequent editorial on the 23rd

portrayed the Charter as “a worthy platform for democracy’s defensive campaign,” but

made no reference to its having any application for the Philippines.4 The most prominent

response to the Charter came from the U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippines, who

called it “one of the really great documents which mark the unconquerable upward

progress of humanity,” but whose importance lay mostly in its “potency to weaken the

allegiance of the German and other peoples to Nazi tyranny.”5 Monthly reports from the

U.S. consulate in Manila made no mention of the Atlantic Charter making any particular

2 H.W. Brands, Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1992), 162. The Nacionalistas “won every seat in the 1938 [legislative] elections,” and their 1941

haul was not much less dominant (p. 163). 3 “Democracy’s 8 Points,” Manila Daily Bulletin, August 16, 1941. 4 “Up to Congress,” Manila Daily Bulletin, August 23, 1941. 5 “News of the Week: Great Weapon,” Philippines Free Press, August 23, 1941.

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impact in the months after its appearance.6 Filipinos seemed not to find the Charter

particularly relevant.

To understand this reaction, especially in the context of the Indian response, one

needs to recognize the political position of the Philippines in 1941. By issuing the

Charter, President Roosevelt had committed to respect the governments chosen by

national territories such as the Philippines. The Philippines of 1941 stood in a unique

relationship to its sovereign colonial overlord. The legal and political intricacies of this

relationship help explain Filipino indifference to the Atlantic Charter, while that context

serves as a backdrop for understanding eventual Filipino engagement with the Atlantic

Charter once the Japanese war and occupation began on December 8, 1941.

The Atlantic Charter made little initial impact in the Philippines because the

United States appeared to have already committed itself irreversibly to decolonization in

the Philippines. The Philippine Independence Act of 1934 (commonly known as the

Tydings-McDuffie Act) provided for both Philippine self-determination and U.S. cession

of sovereignty over the Philippine Islands. The Tydings-McDuffie Act provided for the

creation of a new regime, the Philippine Commonwealth, which would serve as a

transitional, semi-sovereign government between prior U.S. direct administration and the

future, fully independent and sovereign Philippine Republic. The Tydings-McDuffie Act

thus created a de facto and nearly de jure protectorate, in which Filipinos would govern

their domestic affairs while the United States retained control over Philippine external

policy. As one detractor of the arrangement noted, the Tydings-McDuffie Act gave “the

Filipino politicians full control of the islands but [left] full responsibility for them in the

6 Cf. Laurence E. Salisbury, “Monthly Political Report for August, 1941,” September 10, 1941, RG 59

Decimal Files Box 4074, NARA; Laurence E. Salisbury, “Monthly Political Report for September, 1941,”

October 10, 1941, RG 59 Decimal Files Box 4074, NARA.

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hands of the American Government.”7 That critic might have more accurately said “full

control in the islands,” since “the terms of the [Act] permit of no doubt that the United

States [was] still sovereign” over the Philippines in the sense of its international

relations.8

Sovereignty within the archipelago seemingly translated into true self-

determination, as the Tydings-McDuffie Act provided for the Commonwealth to be

formed by a constitution to be determined by Filipinos. Moreover, the Act required

approval by Filipinos in a plebiscite. Maximo Kalaw, a Filipino nationalist public

intellectual in the 1930s, supported the view that the Philippine Commonwealth

represented genuine self-determination.9 The idea of U.S. empire ending in the

Philippines in 1935 helped even consistent U.S. anti-imperialist voices such as the

Chicago Daily Tribune square the continued U.S. presence in the Philippines with an

anticolonial self-image. Hence in August 1941, the Tribune differentiated between the

U.S. concern in southeast Asia and the concerns of Britain, France, and the Netherlands,

depicting the Europeans as colonial and the Americans as non-colonial, concerned for the

independence of the Philippines rather than its own interests.10

The Philippines certainly acquired the trappings of decolonization, albeit

decolonization-in-process, after the passage of Tydings-McDuffie. Since the Act was

accepted by the Philippine government and approved in a plebiscite in 1935, its built-in

independence schedule fixed eventual independence on July 4, 1946. Particularly in light

7 Nicholas Roosevelt, “Laying down the White Man’s Burden,” Foreign Affairs 13, no. 4 (July 1935): 680. 8 Ralston Hayden, “The Philippines in Transition: From Commonwealth to Independence,” Foreign Affairs

14, no. 4 (July 1936): 641. 9 Maximo M. Kalaw, “The New Constitution of the Philippine Commonwealth,” Foreign Affairs 13, no. 4

(July 1935): 687–688. 10 “America in the Far East,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 20, 1941.

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of British reluctance to offer any timetable for eventual withdrawal to Indian nationalists,

the firm U.S. commitment to devolve sovereignty represented an exception among

colonial powers and further reinforced Filipino perceptions of the Philippines as

relatively decolonized.11 On November 15, 1935, at his inauguration to the presidency of

the new Commonwealth, veteran nationalist leader Manuel Quezon saw the Philippine

and American flags raised to the same height, symbolizing international equality.12

Philippine decolonization’s “in-process” designation qualified the Commonwealth

in important symbolic ways, reminding Filipinos that the United States retained

sovereignty. President Quezon received a nineteen-gun salute, rather than the 21 guns

obliged to a sovereign head of state. Also, while equal to its U.S. counterpart, the

Philippine flag could not fly without the corresponding U.S. flag.13 Anti-American

Japanese and Filipino rhetoric would make the most of these reminders of Filipino

subordination, but the U.S. commitment to scheduled independence and the

comparatively autonomous Philippine Commonwealth government helped defer or co-opt

Filipino contestation of U.S. sovereignty through the Commonwealth period.14 Hence,

when the Atlantic Charter promised self-determination for colonized territories, President

Roosevelt could point to U.S. devolution in the Philippines as a model for European

11 Arguing against its implementation, one author in 1941 acknowledged that “the political independence of

the Philippines, effective in 1946, is legally a closed issue.” Cf. Florence Horn, Orphans of the Pacific: The

Philippines (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941), 285. Likewise, Philippine Vice President Sergio

Osmeña asserted on July 4, 1941, that “independence is no longer an open, debatable issue among us, much

less in the halls of the American Congress, after the passage of the Independence Act.” Cf. James G.

Wingo, “Independence Merry-Go-Round: Independence Boost in Roosevelt-Churchill Pact,” Philippines

Free Press, September 13, 1941, 20. 12 Alfred W. McCoy, “The Philippines: Independence without Decolonisation,” in Asia - The Winning of

Independence, ed. Robin Jeffrey (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 25. 13 McCoy, “Independence without Decolonisation,” 25. 14 Cf. Ricardo T. Jose, “Accord and Discord: Japanese Cultural Policy and Philippine National Identity

during the Japanese Occupation (1942-1945),” in Imperial Japan and National Identities in Asia, 1895-

1945, ed. Li Narangoa and Robert Cribb (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 249, 252.

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imperialists.15 Conversely, Filipinos could ignore or overlook the decolonizing impetus of

such a document because of relative satisfaction with U.S. action.16

Part of this preemption—the 1934 grant of internal self-government—also

provided a more basic distraction from the announcement of the Atlantic Charter. In mid-

August 1941, the Philippine Commonwealth entered the campaign period for its second

election, the first having occurred in 1935, after the ratification of the Constitution

provided for in Tydings-McDuffie. Philippine attention gravitated toward President

Manuel Quezon, who pushed through constitutional reforms allowing him to pursue a

second term, rather than the U.S. President’s press release. After all, that press release

announced U.S. support for self-government, something most Filipinos felt they were

already practicing.17 As one news report noted, the 1941 presidential race “blotted out

from the Philippines’ view all the sordid happenings in Europe and Asia.”18

Quezon’s Nacionalista Party, holding its convention to nominate Quezon for his

second term as the Commonwealth’s president, dominated the headlines rather than the

Atlantic Charter. Although the Party did affirm the Charter during its convention, the

resolution it approved came at the very end of the convention and attracted almost no

15 Cf. Füredi, The Silent War, 190. The rhetoric permeated U.S. rhetoric about the Philippines: for example,

“The Leaven of 1776,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 30, 1942; Frederic S. Marquardt, Before Bataan and

After: A Personalized History of Our Philippine Experiment (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,

1943), 261. 16 “Philippines Called Symbol Of Freedom,” Washington Post, November 7, 1942. Put more positively,

after the Japanese invasion Filipinos articulated their support for the United States in terms of defending a

freedom which was “already” theirs. Hence, they could fight because they were free: for example, see

“Quezon Pictures Future to House,” New York Times, June 3, 1942. This effort seems to have been

somewhat successful, at least among Filipino-Americans: one Filipino-American volunteer in California

said in July 1942: “We Filipinos are in this war to stay until we attain our dual objective: to help America

win the war and to drive the Japs away from our homeland,” linking Philippine nationalism with pro-

Americanism. Ernesto D. Ilustre, “Filipino Fighting Men,” Washington Post, July 28, 1942. 17 “Quezon Accepts Renomination,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1941; Quezon had “adroitly [timed]

ratification [of amendments to Philippine constitution] to coincide with Roosevelt’s precedent-flouting run

for a third term in the United States”: Brands, Bound to Empire, 186. 18 Vincent Pacis, “Political Distraction: Quezon Party Power,” Washington Post, October 15, 1941.

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comment in the press.19 Even the Philippines’ Resident Commissioner, its quasi-

diplomatic representative in the United States, Joaquin Elizalde, made no mention of the

Charter in his radio address to Filipinos in the United States just a few days after the

Charter’s appearance. Instead, he focused on President Quezon’s upcoming birthday,

itself marked by a high-profile radio exchange with U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace.20

These radio talks also failed to mention the Charter.21

While the Philippine audience did not take much notice of the Atlantic Charter, it

had taken notice of the Conference between Roosevelt and Churchill.22 This conference,

as much as the Charter’s idealistic statements, had signaled the U.S. alignment with

Britain against the Axis powers, including Japan. As a manifestation of rising tensions

around the world amid the European war, the Conference proved relevant for Filipinos

fearful of the outbreak of war in the Pacific. Since the rapid German victories of spring

1940, the French and Dutch metropoles had lost most of their leverage over their

southeast Asian imperial holdings, allowing Japan to occupy French Indochina and to set

its sights on embattled Britain’s Malayan colonies and the Netherlands’ East Indies. This

geopolitical realignment placed the Philippines in the potential crossfire of an Anglo-

Dutch-Japanese conflict. As in western Europe against Germany, the United States had

by mid-1941 edged towards economic warfare against Japan on behalf of the western

19 “Party Expresses P.I. Adherence to 8-Point War Aims,” Manila Daily Bulletin, August 20, 1941; wrap-

up coverage from the convention made no mention of the resolution affirming the Charter: Leon O. Ty,

“The Nationalists’ Big Guns,” Philippines Free Press, August 23, 1941. 20 “Calls on Filipinos for ‘Service’ to U. S. and Commonwealth,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 17, 1941. 21 J.L. Valencia, “President Reaffirms Loyalty to America,” Manila Daily Bulletin, August 20, 1941;

“Wallace-Quezon Radio Talks Show Ties of U.S., P.I. Not Merely Political,” Manila Daily Bulletin,

August 21, 1941; “The First Duty,” Manila Daily Bulletin, August 21, 1941; cf. full text of Quezon’s

speech, reprinted in the Manila Bulletin of August 20, attached as an enclosure to Salisbury, “Monthly

Political Report for August, 1941.” 22 The Philippines Free Press ran photographs from the Conference as they became available, for instance

in the August 23 and September 6 issues, without corresponding stories.

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European Allies, beginning military readiness measures. Most notably for the

Philippines, the U.S. military buildup had occasioned the creation of a new U.S.

command based there in July 1941: the United States Army Forces in the Far East. This

command brought Douglas MacArthur, who had begun to build the Philippine

Commonwealth’s nascent army on Quezon’s request in 1935, back into command in

Manila.23 These events did command Filipinos’ attention amid their presidential

campaign.

In the course of his re-election campaign President Quezon would highlight the

impact of the global crisis on the Philippines. In so doing, Quezon would use and

emphasize very particular language relating to the decolonizing power, the United States,

and its role in global affairs. Accepting his party’s nomination for the presidency on

August 16, 1941, Quezon related the promise of Philippine independence to both the

global conflict and the United States. Quezon insisted that “if the democracies win the

war…the Philippines may enjoy the independence guaranteed by the United States”

promised in the Tydings-McDuffie Act.24 Quezon thus linked Filipino allegiance to the

United States, and Philippine opposition to the Axis, to Philippine independence.

Throughout the fall of 1941, Quezon would continually affirm Filipino loyalism

to the United States. For example, Quezon told Vice President Wallace on the August 19

radio broadcast that the Philippines were “with the United States in life and death.”25 In

light of the general sense that the United States would indeed cede sovereignty over the

23 For a crisp summary, see Brands, Bound to Empire, 185–190; for more detail, see Richard Bruce

Meixsel, “Manuel L. Quezon, Douglas MacArthur, and the Significance of the Military Mission to the

Philippine Commonwealth,” Pacific Historical Review 70, no. 2 (May 2001): 255–92. 24 “Liberty Hinges on War, Quezon Tells Filipinos,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 17, 1941. 25 Quezon, quoted in “Quezon and Wallace Exchange Greetings in Ocean Broadcast,” Chicago Daily

Tribune, August 20, 1941.

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Philippines, loyalism to the United States could ironically be portrayed as pro-

independence.26 In the ambiguous international legal construct of the Commonwealth,

Filipinos affirming ties to the United States in turn affirmed the U.S. arrangement for

Philippine independence. Moreover, by highlighting the U.S. pledge to decolonize,

Philippine rhetoric could portray loyalism to the colonial power as in fact anticolonial, in

contrast to Japanese expansionism. In a September 28 interview, Elizalde affirmed that

“the fate of Philippine independence hinge[d] now upon the outcome of the war,” since

due to Axis maneuvers “the world does not seem as safe for small nations as it once

did.”27 When the Japanese invaded, Quezon could deploy this rhetoric to pronounce that

“you are, therefore, fighting with America because America is fighting for our

freedom.”28All of this coincided neatly with the U.S. anticolonial self-image and the

rhetoric of the Atlantic Charter. After the Japanes invasion, this rhetoric would

increasingly turn to the Atlantic Charter.

These statements did not cite the Atlantic Charter, but they linked the Philippine

political regime closely to the United States. Philippine leaders would only later deploy

the Atlantic Charter within this structure, but the form held true from the prewar period

into wartime. The rhetoric served a domestic purpose as well. By continually affirming

democratic idealism, Quezon could undercut his domestic and U.S. opponents, who

frequently criticized the clientelist style of his ruling Nacionalista Party and his own

publicly avowed disdain for multiparty democracy.29 The sheer volume of material

demonstrates how such seemingly non-nationalist subservience could form an

26 David Joel Steinberg, The Philippines: A Singular and a Plural Place, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview

Press, 1990), 98. 27 W. B. Ragsdale, “Philippine Freedom Is Aim of Elizalde,” Washington Post, September 28, 1941. 28 Manuel Luis Quezon, The Good Fight (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1946), 242–243. 29 Horn, Orphans of the Pacific, 3–4, 65, 77–85.

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autonomous, albeit moderate, discourse.30 It also points to the power of the U.S. narrative

of itself as a voluntary decolonizing power.31

After his decisive victory in the November 11 election, Quezon turned his rhetoric

toward a U.S. audience, where professions of Philippine loyalism could hope to secure

political goodwill for defining the wartime and postcolonial U.S.-Philippine

relationship.32 With tensions rising in the Pacific, Quezon walked a clever line affirming

loyalty in order to secure U.S. security guarantees, and then citing the U.S. security

guarantee to justify loyalism. Hence, in a November 15 radio address commemorating the

anniversary of the Commonwealth for U.S. and Filipino audiences, Quezon “informed

[Filipinos] that America had decided upon all-out defense of the Philippines in case a

general war breaks out in Asia,” and hence “called on all Filipinos to perform their full

share” in support of the U.S. military buildup in the Philippines, active since July.

Quezon offered this vision to Filipinos in terms of a generic democratic idealism,

claiming that the United States and the Philippines “gained the conviction that with our

30 For example, amid his re-election campaign, Quezon sent President Roosevelt a message on October 18.

Quezon accepted that in the event of an American-Japanese war, “it is but natural to expect that the

Philippines will be the scene of such a conflict.” Nonetheless, Quezon reiterated “that our government and

people are absolutely and wholeheartedly for you and your policies, and that we are casting our lot with

America no matter what sacrifices such determination may entail.” In an almost masochistic passage,

Quezon mused that while “it is, of course, a dreadful thing to contemplate the horrors of war,” nonetheless

a U.S. war in Asia could serve a profound political purpose “before the severance of the political ties now

existing between the United States and the Philippines.” A war could offer “the Filipino people…the

opportunity to prove in supreme efforts and sacrifices not only our deep appreciation of the great things

which America has contributed in the upbuilding of this new nation of ours, but also the fact that the

democratic ideals of the United States have become our sacred heritage, and that to preserve such a

precious gift we are willing to pay the price in blood and treasure.” Quezon to President Roosevelt, October

18, 1941, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1941, vol. 4, The Far East

(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1956), 526. 31 For the most recent articulation of this critique and an insightful observation of the power of this pro-

American narrative, cf. Reynaldo C. Ileto, “Philippine Wars and the Politics of Memory,” Positions 13, no.

1 (Spring 2005): 225. Ileto identifies the “institutional power of [the] story.” 32 “Quezon Receives Huge Majorities Even in Manila,” Washington Post, November 12, 1941; “Quezon

Returned in Filipino Poll,” New York Times, November 12, 1941; “The Re-Election of President Quezon,”

Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1941.

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joint efforts liberty and democracy can successfully resist the aggression on our soil.”33 In

rhetoric aimed at Filipinos, Quezon spoke of generalized ideals but with a greater

emphasis on national security.

By contrast, when his speech turned to its U.S. audience, Quezon outlined a

vision of the military effort in indirect invocations of Rooseveltian rhetoric. Quezon

offered the typical “gratitude to America and the preservation of the liberty she has

granted us,” affirming the U.S. self-image as Philippine liberator and up-lifter.34

However, Quezon went on to argue for the Philippines’ role in the global war aims

outlined by Roosevelt in the Atlantic Charter. He invoked anti-Axis slogans by speaking

of the Philippines joining “the gigantic effort of the United States to save democracy and

banish the totalitarians from the face of the earth.”35 Quezon insisted that Filipinos would

“do our share, for our country and for the United States, for liberty and for justice and for

the right of free men to sing and speak freely, to worship God as they please, to work

without the strain of compulsion in the pursuit of happiness and to live a way of life

chosen by themselves.” In this credo, Quezon reformulated Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms

(themselves the rhetorical roots of the Atlantic Charter), repeating the freedoms of speech

and worship and indirectly referencing the freedoms from want and fear by calling for

freedom to work and to live. Quezon appealed to Roosevelt personally in his speech,

affirming Filipinos’ “faith in the…spirit of the American people, their government and

their great President.”36 Despite deep division in the United States over Roosevelt’s

33 Quezon, quoted in “Assures Islands of Our Aid,” New York Times, November 16, 1941. 34 Quezon, quoted in “Assures Islands of Our Aid.” 35 Quezon, quoted in “Quezon Pledges Full Defense Aid,” New York Times, November 16, 1941. 36 Quezon, quoted in “Assures Islands of Our Aid.”

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leadership, addressing the U.S. public Quezon chose to adopt Rooseveltian rhetoric and

appeal to Roosevelt’s global project – summarized in the Atlantic Charter.

Looking back from 1942, anticolonial sympathizer Catherine Porter read

Quezon’s actions as having “brought the Philippines into the camp of powers opposing

the spread of aggression and the establishment of ‘new orders,’” such as Japan’s Greater

East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The tone of Roosevelt and Churchill’s declaration had

reaffirmed the U.S. self-image as anticolonial, which Porter then transposed onto

Philippine nationalism, assuming that the Charter must have “had significance for the

Filipinos.”37 What was more important than Filipino reactions, though, was Quezon’s

invocation of Roosevelt’s language, supposedly demonstrating that Filipinos shared

Roosevelt’s vision for the world. In fact, Quezon’s campaign speeches had very

indirectly invoked U.S.-inspired democratic idealism and had focused more on securing a

U.S. guarantee for Philippine security amid rising regional tensions. When speaking to

U.S. audiences, though, Quezon explicitly used Roosevelt-style rhetoric to demonstrate

Filipino loyalism not only to the United States but to Roosevelt’s vision.

The calculated nature of Quezon’s invocation of U.S. rhetoric, and his consistent

attempts to placate Filipino audiences as well as U.S. listeners, shone through in late

November 1941. As U.S.-Japanese negotiations stalled, Quezon lashed out against his

Filipino and U.S. critics. In a national broadcast, Quezon excoriated the tardiness of the

United States beginning war preparations in the Philippines, thus pre-empting criticism

that Quezon himself had perhaps not done enough to secure the Philippines. Instead, he

lashed out at critics such as the American Civil Liberties Union and its Philippine

counterpart which had lambasted his use of emergency powers to censor newspapers.

37 Catherine Porter, Crisis in the Philippines (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942), 21, 143.

115

Quezon identified these critics as “American imperialists” hampering his efforts to use

presidential prerogatives to secure the Philippines in a time of crisis.38 Although Quezon

backtracked in a December 1 statement, he had demonstrated his capacity for political

flexibility, using the language of anticolonialism to tar his domestic opponents and to turn

on U.S. officials momentarily in order to absolve himself of any potential policy failures

and, perhaps, to reaffirm his nationalist credentials.39

The Atlantic Charter made little impact on the Philippines at the time of its

release, likely due to U.S. interest in preserving its anticolonial self-image, but also due to

positive beliefs about ongoing U.S. decolonization in the Philippines. In light of this,

Filipinos’ attention was drawn more to their 1941 presidential election. However,

President Manuel Quezon’s re-election bid and his post-election statements operated in a

discourse that paralleled U.S. interests in the Atlantic Charter while still promoting his

own interests. Quezon highlighted Filipino loyalty to the United States, in part through

affirming U.S. “democratic ideals” and invoking Roosevelt-style language. The Atlantic

Charter itself was not the focus, perhaps because its proffered anticolonial rhetoric

already seemed fulfilled in Philippine decolonization. As U.S. self-representation,

however, the Charter paralleled Quezon’s flattering representations of the United States,

which he used to secure support from Filipinos and to attempt to extract commitments

from U.S. policymakers. When we place Quezon’s rhetoric in the context of the Atlantic

Charter, we see how Quezon used U.S. statements and his U.S. audience. Once the

Philippine Commonwealth was overwhelmed by a Japanese invasion force which also

38 H. Ford Wilkins, “Quezon Accuses U.S. on Defenses,” New York Times, November 29, 1941. 39 “U.S. Pilots and Planes to Fight in China’s Army,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 1, 1941; H. Ford

Wilkins, “Quezon Avows His Loyalty To Roosevelt,” Washington Post, December 2, 1941.

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propounded an anticolonial ethos, the Atlantic Charter itself would reappear, used by

Quezon to promote his conception of Philippine interests.

Elizalde’s Pacific Charter: December 1941-April 1942

The Japanese invasion of the Philippines, coincident with the Pearl Harbor

attacks, prompted a shift in Philippine rhetoric. At first, Quezon fell back on the rhetoric

of loyalism which had characterized his speeches throughout his campaign for re-

election. He also increasingly infused his speeches with references to the Philippines

fighting the war for broader, nobler goals as well. Immediately after war broke out,

Quezon cabled Roosevelt affirming Filipino loyalty “in testimony of their gratitude…and

because of their devotion to the cause of democracy and freedom.”40 In his speech on

December 19, appealing for aid from the United States to repel the invasion, Quezon

spoke of the Philippines fighting “to defend the cause of liberty and democracy,” and that

“we realize that our fate is inseparably linked with that of America and so long as

America is in the conflict we will continue to defend with our lives the honor and glory

of the Stars and Stripes.”41 In his December 31 inaugural address given on the island

fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay, Quezon appealed to Filipinos to “rededicate

ourselves to the great principle of freedom and democracy for which our forefathers

fought and died” since “the present war is being fought for these same principles.”42

As the Japanese conquered the Philippines over the early months of 1942, and as

Quezon’s health worsened, his ability to project his voice ebbed. The importance of the

Philippine Commissioner in Washington increased, amplifying his voice to a U.S. public

40 “Islands Loyal, Quezon Cables,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1941. 41 “Quezon Asks U.S. to Send Supplies,” New York Times, December 20, 1941. 42 Ford Wilkins, “Quezon Inducted for Second Term,” New York Times, December 31, 1941.

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now riveted on the Philippines. At this point, the Atlantic Charter began to appear in

Philippine rhetoric. The Philippines’ Resident Commissioner in Washington, D.C.,

Joaquin “Mike” Elizalde, echoed Quezon’s speeches at first, emphasizing Philippine

gratitude to and solidarity with the United States in a January 3 piece released after the

fall of Manila to the Japanese, identifying the Philippine war effort with Quezon’s phrase,

the generic “human liberty and justice.”43

By late February, Elizalde fully invoked the Atlantic Charter, but he did so in

order to expose its weaknesses. In a little-reported speech in Philadelphia, which the

Washington Post nonetheless called “one of the most significant speeches since the

outbreak of the Pacific war,” Elizalde pointed out the need for the war to be fought for

universal freedom rather than merely for European freedom. Buoyed by the recent

collapses of British and Dutch forces in their Southeast Asian colonies, contrasted to the

U.S.-Philippine cooperative war effort continuing to fight off the Japanese on Bataan,

Elizalde valorized Philippine democracy and self-determination against the implicit non-

freedom of other European colonies in the region. In order to win the war, the warring

Allies needed to declare whether the war would mean “merely freedom and democracy

for Americans, Britons, Dutch and other European peoples, or whether it is freedom for

all concerned.” As the Post summarized, “we must make the Asiatics understand they are

not pawns but partners in this struggle” by clarifying the universalism of the Atlantic

Charter in a new document, a ‘Pacific Charter.’44

Elizalde would return to the need for the Charter’s values, especially self-

determination, to be applied universally, throughout the spring of 1942. In a March 9

43 Joaquin M. Elizalde, “Fiercer Struggle in Philippines Seen,” New York Times, January 3, 1942. 44 “A Pacific Charter,” Washington Post, February 21, 1942.

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radio address, Elizalde again proposed a Pacific charter in order to “[carry] for the

peoples of the Pacific and Asia the guarantees put into the Atlantic charter proclaimed

last year” so as to counteract Asian ambivalence over having to “decide between

supporting an archaic system of imperialism or accepting a cruel future of Japanese

exploitation under the false slogan ‘Asia for the Asiatics.’”45 In a speech to Democratic

Party donors on March 23, Elizalde again brought up the need to motivate colonized

Asians against Japan by offering them something better than imperialism, namely true

democracy.46 In neither of these addresses did Elizalde explicitly relate the Atlantic

Charter to the Philippines, instead offering an external Philippine anticolonial vision for

Asia, assuming the Philippines as an already-decolonized polity.

In an April 1942 article for the anticolonial journal Amerasia, Elizalde linked the

Philippine experience directly to the Charter. Elizalde claimed that the Philippines hoped

to duplicate its experience of decolonization all across Asia, since the Philippine

resistance to Japan was rooted in “friendship for and gratitude to the people of the United

States,” giving Filipinos “something to fight for.” Elizalde emphasized the need for the

war’s values to be recognized as universal, not merely European or American, reminding

his American readers that “above all, we are fighting to protect the freedom and

democracy which are as much a part of our spirit as they are of yours.”47 Elizalde

recognized the importance of such universalism for the Atlantic Charter to be seen as

valid, and applauded Roosevelt’s Washington Day speech in which he “stressed that the

Atlantic Charter applies to the whole world,” “held forth the four freedoms…to the

people of the Pacific,” and “declared in all solemnity that a prime objective of this war is

45 “Filipinos Warns Oppressed Asia May Turn on Us,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 10, 1942. 46 “Democratic Women Hear J.M. Elizalde,” Washington Post, March 24, 1942. 47 Joaquin M. Elizalde, “The Meaning of a Pacific Charter,” Amerasia, April 1942, 83.

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the establishment of the right of self-determination for all people,” in opposition to

Churchill’s September 1941 limitation of the Charter to Europe. Recognizing the damage

done by Churchill’s limitation, Elizalde reiterated his call for a Pacific Charter to “assert

unequivocally the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they

will live, and should guarantee social and economic justice for all,” necessarily implying

that the Atlantic Charter had failed to do so. Only with such a specification could the

Allies show that “this war is not being fought for the furtherance of imperialistic

supremacy, but for the principles of liberty and the right of all men to live,” principles

which the colonialist West “must understand” to be “valid in any part of the world.”48

Elizalde’s speeches drew attention to the deficiencies of Western colonial

policies, implicitly highlighting the excellence of U.S. policy in the Philippines and hence

the legitimacy of Philippine loyalism. His calls for a Pacific Charter anticipated more

radical voices among U.S. and global anticolonial movements, who embraced the idea of

the United States committing itself more firmly to even more directly anticolonial

promises.49

When the Japanese conquest of Bataan and eventually Corregidor forced Quezon

to flee to the United States, Philippine evocations of the Atlantic Charter backed away

from exposing its deficiencies and more toward emphasizing its legitimacy embodied in

the decolonizing Philippine Commonwealth. As Quezon took the lead in Philippine

rhetoric after his relocation to the metropole, Elizalde’s calls for more explicit U.S.

48 Elizalde, “The Meaning of a Pacific Charter,” 85. 49 Cf., for example, from China, the African-American community, and the liberal Protestant communities:

“Chungking Official Calls For a ‘Pacific Charter,’” New York Times, March 23, 1942; Harry Paxton

Howard, “A Pacific Charter,” Washington Post, April 18, 1942; “10,000 Negroes Hear Appeal to Ban

Color Line,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 27, 1942; “Church Group Proposes Pacific Charter,”

Washington Post, August 15, 1942.

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guarantees to Asian anticolonialists faded into the background in favor of Quezon’s use

of the Charter to legitimize his own loyalist regime. These elements had been present in

Elizalde’s work, but by branching out into greater demands on the United States, Elizalde

had aligned his rhetoric with the broader anticolonial movement, and especially its more

radical elements.

Quezon’s Atlantic Charter: May 1942-1943

In failing health under the duress of Japanese bombardment of the Corregidor

island fortress, Quezon left the Philippine front in late March 1942, disappearing in

transit before reappearing in Australia and then finally relocating to Washington, D.C.

Upon arriving in Washington on May 13, Quezon organized a government-in-exile,

presenting the Philippines as a sovereign state, like other governments-in-exile such as

Poland, France, or Yugoslavia.50 As such, Quezon sought to promote the Philippines as a

member of the Pacific War Council, the largely ceremonial conferences of the heads-of-

state of the ‘United Nations’ states waging war against Japan.51 Joining the Council

would cement de facto recognition of Philippine sovereignty, hence solidifying Filipino

faith in “the American people and in those principles of government which all inspired

democratic peoples are today fighting to preserve,” as a Filipino-American group argued

upon Quezon’s arrival.52

50 “Quezon Organizes Government-in-Exile,” New York Times, May 15, 1942. 51 Quezon wrote a letter to this effect on June 6: Francis Burton Harrison, Origins of the Philippine

Republic: Extracts from the Diaries and Records of Francis Burton Harrison, ed. Michael P. Onorato, Data

Paper 95 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1974), 157. 52 Edward T. Folliard, “Roosevelt and Notable Group Welcome Quezon to Capital,” Washington Post, May

14, 1942.

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The Declaration by United Nations, which affirmed the Atlantic Charter, served

as the mechanism for the Philippines to formally join the United Nations alliance and

then join the Pacific War Council, solidifying its image (if not reality) as a sovereign

state. President Roosevelt proved more than amenable to this course of action, just as he

had pushed the British to allow India to sign the Declaration as an ally in an effort to prod

it towards recognizing Indian sovereignty. By such a costless action, the United States

could portray itself as a benevolent decolonizing agent, elevating the Philippines to de

facto sovereignty to promote its anticolonial bona fides. 53 The administration notified

Quezon of its assent on June 12 and prepared a lavish publicity event at the White House

for Flag Day on June 14, in which Quezon would sign the Declaration along with Mexico

– the first new adherents to the Declaration and the United Nations alliance since its

promulgation in January.54

In contrast to the Indian signature of the Declaration in January, which the British

insisted on downplaying, the Philippine signature was universally seen as a recognition of

de facto independence. The press saw the adherence as a U.S. disposition “to regard the

Philippines as an independent and sovereign country.”55 Indeed, U.S. officials discussing

the possibility of the move recognized that it “is equivalent to formal recognition by us at

this time of the independent status of the Philippines.”56 Quezon himself privately

53 Harrison, Origins of the Philippine Republic, 157; officials in the Roosevelt administration had

recognized the political value of such a move as early as April 16, but only when Quezon requested the

measure himself did the administration move: Welles to President Roosevelt, April 17, 1942, Foreign

Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1942, vol. 1, General; The British Commonwealth; The

Far East (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1960), 904. 54 Harrison, Origins of the Philippine Republic, 159; “Philippines to Join War Partnership,” New York

Times, June 14, 1942; William Strand, “Tyranny Doomed by Free Nations, Says Roosevelt,” Chicago

Daily Tribune, June 15, 1942. 55 “Philippines to Join War Partnership.” 56 Welles to President Roosevelt, April 17, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1:904. Prior to Quezon’s request for the

measure, President Roosevelt himself balked at this recognition, only relenting after reasoning that non-

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affirmed that “this signing of the United Nations pact is a recognition of us as a separate

nation.”57 The subsequent admission of the Philippines to the Pacific War Council

confirmed this status: the New York Times depicted the Philippines’ June 17 admission as

“recognition [of the Philippines] as a sovereign nation.”58 Likewise, Quezon emphasized

the importance of the Council less for any policymaking procedure – in this it was

“largely a farce” – than because “it was at least desirable to have the Philippines

represented on it to show the world that they had equality with other nations of the

Pacific.”59

These largely symbolic gestures would become lynchpins of Quezon’s self-

representation and of his representation of the Philippines in regards to the Atlantic

Charter, both in and of itself and as a component of the Declaration by United Nations.

Throughout this period, Philippine officials and U.S. media emphasized that Quezon

“embodied” the Philippines, much as Charles de Gaulle claimed to “embody” France

after its capitulation in 1940.60 Therefore, while the Japanese may have conquered the

Philippines, they had not conquered Quezon, and “wherever Quezon is, there will be the

free Philippines, and there will also be the pledge that the tomorrow of liberty will be

independent India had signed the Declaration: Roosevelt to Hull, April 22, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1:906.

Carlton Savage (assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Long) to Hull, June 9, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1:907. 57 Quezon, quoted in Harrison, Origins of the Philippine Republic, 166. 58 “Good News given to Pacific Council,” New York Times, June 18, 1942; many contemporaries shared

this perception, and Philippine officials repeated it: Bienvenido N. Santos, “Filipinos in War,” Far Eastern

Survey, November 30, 1942, 250; Sergio Osmeña, “The United Nations and the Philippines,” Annals of the

American Academy of Political and Social Science 228 (July 1943): 25; Marquardt, Before Bataan and

After, 212. 59 Quezon, quoted in Harrison, Origins of the Philippine Republic, 190; for a detailed reporting of the

Philippine presence on the Council, cf. Rufino C. Pabico, The Exiled Government: The Philippine

Commonwealth in the United States During the Second World War (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books,

2006), 85–98. 60 Ernest Santos, “Quezon’s Health,” Washington Post, April 7, 1942; “It’s Their Fight, Too,” Chicago

Daily Tribune, April 20, 1942.

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realized.”61 That is, in his tie to the United States, Quezon represented the promise of

independence through loyalty to the United States.

Quezon valorized his own role in representing the Philippines in the United

States, and presented his own actions as representing the collective will of the

Philippines. On June 20, Quezon sent a public telegram to General MacArthur in which

he relayed that by his signature of the Declaration by United Nations, “the distinct and

separate identity of the Philippines as a nation has been recognized,” validating his own

personal quest to achieve “the practical recognition of the rights of nationhood for my

people.”62 A day earlier, Quezon had begun plans to record a commentary on a short film

to be distributed in South America and occupied countries emphasizing “that America

fulfills its promises and that the Philippines were happy under American rule.”63 Quezon

presented himself as the personification of the Philippine people, for whom he flattered

his U.S. hosts with the account of U.S. benevolence. In April 1943, Quezon would repeat

the personification in a Times Sunday magazine piece, reiterating that “in the name of the

Philippines, I am a signatory of the Atlantic Charter.”64

Quezon needed to portray the Declaration as an affirmation of Philippine

independence and then tie the document to himself in order to validate his own regime in

the face of Japanese competition. Conquest and defeat always deprive governments of

some level of legitimacy, and must have done so doubly for the Commonwealth leaders.

Not only had they collaborated with the United States, the colonial power, in the interest

61 “Welcome To Quezon,” Washington Post, May 14, 1942. 62 “Quezon Salutes MacArthur for Aid to Islands,” Washington Post, June 22, 1942; the New York Times’

headline indicated Quezon’s emphasis: “National Freedom Stressed by Quezon,” New York Times, June 22,

1942. 63 Leonard Lyons, “Broadway Bulletins,” Washington Post, June 19, 1942. 64 Manuel L. Quezon, “The Undying Spirit of Bataan,” New York Times Magazine, April 4, 1943.

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of security, but this security had not even held. Moreover, the Japanese government

framed its invasion and occupation in the same terms as the United States had done,

namely of liberation. Threateningly, the Japanese held out the possibility of declaring the

Philippines independent after completing their conquest, placing the supposedly pro-

independence Commonwealth leaders in a difficult position. Quezon realized as much

and expressed it shortly after his arrival in the United States, confiding that “the great

political danger” to the Commonwealth in exile was “that the Japanese may declare the

independence of the Philippines themselves.”65 In light of this conscious admission by

Quezon, we should analyze Philippine Atlantic Charter rhetoric not only as flattering

U.S. patrons but also grasping for legitimacy to justify the Commonwealth’s existence

and claims to sovereignty. Quezon’s speeches, reproduced in newspapers and broadcast

over U.S. radio, could reach the Philippines by radio.66

Pursuant to bolstering their own legitimacy, Quezon and other Philippine officials

in the exiled government used the anticolonial promises of the Atlantic Charter to

legitimize the Philippine Commonwealth. In his petition on June 10 for the Philippines to

adhere to the Declaration by United Nations, Quezon tied the Declaration directly to the

Atlantic Charter to justify Philippine adherence. In particular, Quezon identified a

particularly Philippine tie to the document, claiming that Filipinos were “wholeheartedly

devoted to liberty and fully subscribe to the principles set forth in…the Atlantic

Charter.”67 Such rhetorical flourish both flattered Quezon’s U.S. sponsors and echoed

Elizalde’s rhetoric from before Quezon’s arrival in the United States. Quezon’s speech on

65 Harrison, Origins of the Philippine Republic, 158. Quezon appears to have contemplated pushing

President Roosevelt to push up Philippine independence as early as June 15, 1942, over a year before a

more modified resolution did pass Congress (p. 167). 66 Cf. Harrison, Origins of the Philippine Republic, 166. 67 Quezon to Hull, June 10, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1:907.

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August 9, 1942, broadcast on CBS, emphasized the Charter’s universalism and its

anticolonialism: “the Atlantic Charter is a world-wide charter” and “it is a charter of

freedom for the peoples of Asia and all the Far East.”68

Where Elizalde called for a Pacific Charter to make the Atlantic Charter’s

universalism more explicit, Quezon affirmed the Atlantic Charter itself, in line with

Roosevelt’s own rhetoric on the document. Quezon “regretted that the Atlantic Charter is

so named” since “too many persons have fallen into the error of believing that it applies

only to those who live beside the Atlantic Ocean,” rebuking both Churchill’s limited

view of the Charter and those who pushed Roosevelt for a new commitment. Quezon and

others argued that the Philippines represented the fulfillment of the Atlantic Charter, a

sort of precursor to the Charter itself. Quezon implied as much in his speech on August 9,

noting that the Charter’s promises made “sense to Americans as well as to my

countrymen,” implying that Americans had already applied the promises there.69 This

argument attempted retroactively to appropriate the popularity and legitimacy of the

Atlantic Charter onto the Commonwealth regime. That is, by attaching itself to the

Charter, the Philippine government-in-exile both supported the Charter itself and used the

Charter’s popularity to burgeon support for the government-in-exile.

The new line on the Philippines as the fulfillment of the Atlantic Charter began to

appear in late 1942. Quezon’s chaplain voiced his opinion that “the principles of today’s

Atlantic Charter were carried out years ago in the case of the Philippines.”70 A ceremony

held in Washington in November marked the seventh anniversary of the Philippine

Commonwealth, highlighting the legitimacy of Quezon’s exiled government. On this

68 “‘World Charter’ Hailed by Quezon,” New York Times, August 10, 1942. 69 “‘World Charter’ Hailed by Quezon.” 70 “Philippines Called Symbol Of Freedom.”

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occasion, Quezon explicitly linked his legitimacy with the Atlantic Charter, claiming that

“years before the principles of the Atlantic Charter were enunciated, America was

already applying those principles in actual practice.”71 Quezon spoke of hearing of the

Atlantic Charter in 1941, when he saw

not something brand new, untested, visionary, but rather a reaffirmation of faith in what

already had been done in the Philippines before my very eyes. We already knew the

meaning of the Atlantic Charter, for our own country had been the testing ground for the

practical solution of the problems that must be met in achieving the God-given right of

the people’s freedom.72

By emphasizing that the Atlantic Charter found fulfillment in the Philippine

decolonization process, Quezon valorized his own regime as a legitimate example of self-

determination. However, he also performed a service to the United States, attempting to

thwart charges of hypocrisy over its alliance with imperial Britain and its refusal to

pressure Britain into committing to withdraw from its empire – such as in India, where

Gandhi and Nehru sat in jail. In answer to such critics as these, who disregarded U.S.

platitudes, Quezon implored “anyone who would consider the Atlantic Charter illusory

and impractical” to consider “the record of the Philippines.”73 Vice President Sergio

Osmeña, who took a more public role as Quezon’s health failed under the pressure of

tuberculosis after 1942, largely continued Quezon’s rhetoric. In a prominent address in

May 1943, Osmeña claimed that “long before the promulgation of the Atlantic Charter,

the Philippines had already pledged herself to follow the cause of democracy and peace,”

in contrast to Quezon, who drew attention to the United States fulfilling the Charter.74

71 Manuel L. Quezon, “Quezon Says Ideal Is Set for World,” New York Times, November 15, 1942. 72 Quezon, quoted in Frederick R. Barkley, “Roosevelt Calls Philippines Model for Independence,” New

York Times, November 16, 1942. 73 Quezon, quoted in Barkley, “Roosevelt Calls Philippines Model for Independence”; later, cf. “Avenge

Bataan! Romulo Appeal to News Group,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 8, 1943. 74 Osmeña, “The United Nations and the Philippines,” 25.

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By claiming that the Philippines exemplified the sincerity of the Atlantic Charter,

Philippine leaders praised the trustworthiness of the U.S. government. Quezon’s chaplain

tried to anticipate skeptics by insisting that “freedom…was not merely a catch phrase to

which Americans paid lip service,” but rather Philippine independence “was something

real, something rapidly coming into fruition right in their own islands.”75 Osmeña spoke

of the United States both “promulgating an altruistic policy, ‘the Philippines for the

Filipinos,’” deliberately mirroring the Japanese “Asia for the Asiatics” slogan, “and then

following it to the letter and the spirit.”76 The Philippines’ auditor-general claimed the

Filipinos continued to fight after the overwhelming Japanese invasion, trusting in

Roosevelt’s pledge “to redeem the independence of the Philippines…as their guiding

spirit.”77 In emphasizing U.S. faithfulness, Philippine Commonwealth voices

commutatively validated their own trust in U.S. promises to liberate the Philippines, and

hence the Commonwealth’s existence as a U.S. entity.

Beyond simply praising U.S. policy, Philippine rhetoric also offered their

decolonization process as a model for other European empires in Asia. Quezon’s chaplain

argued “that what had been done for the Philippines can and must be done for all nations,

whatever their race, religion or color.”78 In his Commonwealth Day speech, Quezon

thundered that “what has been done cooperatively by the United States and the

Philippines can be done by the United Nations in the world of tomorrow, throughout the

whole Southwest Pacific and wherever men yearn for liberty and the right to work out

75 Ortiz, quoted in “Philippines Called Symbol Of Freedom.” 76 Osmeña, “The United Nations and the Philippines,” 28. 77 Santos, “Quezon’s Health.” 78 “Philippines Called Symbol Of Freedom.”

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their own destiny.”79 In a New York Times piece in April 1943, Quezon again reiterated

the point, arguing that the Philippine experience of U.S. Atlantic Charter idealism should

serve as “the blueprint of the practical solution for working out the future destiny of

dependent peoples after the war.”80

In citing the Philippine example, Philippine leaders explicitly called for a

gradualist process of decolonization. Osmeña directly urged “these dependent peoples,

who hunger for justice, freedom, and happiness” to look to the Philippines as a sign that

independence “can be attained, not by distrust, bloodshed, and violence, but by

friendship, understanding, and collaboration.”81 Osmeña’s conservative articulation

would certainly please a U.S. audience of academics more than a Gandhian call to non-

cooperation. The gradualism of the Philippines model fit with President Roosevelt’s

vision for decolonization. In his address following Quezon’s praise of the Atlantic

Charter, Roosevelt emphasized that decolonization must proceed after “a period of

improvement of the physical and economic status of the peoples involved, and…a period

of training of them for ultimate independence.”82 Mexican President Manuel Ávila

Camacho, also speaking at the event, pressed but a little farther than Roosevelt,

describing the Atlantic Charter as “a guarantee that the principles of gradual elimination

of colonies will emerge from this conflict stronger and more definite than ever.”83 While

this paternalistic vision did not differ radically from that of European colonizers,

Roosevelt’s insistence on eventual independence as in the Philippines greatly concerned

79 Quezon, “Quezon Says Ideal Is Set for World.” 80 Quezon, “The Undying Spirit of Bataan”; cf. a pro-Quezon U.S. writer also forwarded this line:

Marquardt, Before Bataan and After, 297. 81 Osmeña, “The United Nations and the Philippines,” 29; the essay reprinted Osmeña’s speech before the

American Academy of Political and Social Science in Philadelphia from May 1943: Catherine Porter, “The

Future of Philippine-American Relations,” Pacific Affairs 16, no. 3 (September 1943): 276. 82 Roosevelt, quoted in Barkley, “Roosevelt Calls Philippine Model for Independence.” 83 Ávila Camacho, quoted in Barkley, “Roosevelt Calls Philippine Model for Independence.”

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contemporary European leaders and offered hope to nationalists. Recognizing that this

understanding of the Atlantic Charter was their best option among the Great Powers,

Philippine leaders seized upon it and promoted it as a way to hasten wider

decolonization. Moreover, the model placed the Philippines at its head, making it an

attractive attribute for Philippine leadership to broadcast.

Philippine leaders used the Atlantic Charter as a rhetorical tool to validate their

choice to align with the United States, despite its defeat in 1941-1942. During its exile in

the United States throughout 1942-1943, the Commonwealth government’s authorities

returned to the Atlantic Charter to flatter the United States and, as a U.S. dependency, to

validate itself. However, in promoting a universal reading of the Charter and tying the

Charter explicitly to decolonization, Philippine leaders presented a vision of the postwar

world different from that of European “United Nations.” As the Philippines became the

first Asian colony to gain internationally-recognized independence after the war ended

and as the Cold War descended, its particular brand of anticolonialism would assume

greater importance.

***

The Commonwealth government exited the limelight in 1944 as President Quezon

faded away under the debilitation of tuberculosis and the war turned in favor of the

Allies. Before his illness became more serious, Quezon began to evoke the Atlantic

Charter in looking toward the future and a postcolonial Philippines. In particular, he

invoked the Charter’s social and economic points to argue that the United States ought to

help rehabilitate the Philippines “economically and financially,” as a tangible

“application of the Atlantic Charter.” Again couched in terms of honor and trust, Quezon

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wrote that in so doing “the American people and the Filipino people can keep faith with

the American and Filipino boys who died on Bataan and Corregidor.”84 Osmeña also

called on the world to retain the Atlantic Charter beyond the crisis of war, so that after the

war, “let us live up to it forever.”85

Osmeña inherited the mantle to fulfill this Atlantic Charter rhetoric in August

1944 when Quezon died in Saranac Lake, New York.86 Shortly afterward, Osmeña waded

ashore on Leyte alongside General Douglas MacArthur. A few months later, with the

reoccupation complete, MacArthur relinquished control over the islands to its civilian

leadership. On the occasion, Osmeña honored Quezon, highlighting the fact that “he

proclaimed Philippine adherence to the Atlantic Charter and to the principle of collective

security.”87 “Collective security” referred to the latest iteration of the Philippines’

identification as an adherent of the Declaration by United Nations. As a signatory, the

Philippines received an invitation to the United Nations Conference on International

Organization in San Francisco, subsequently becoming a founding member of the United

Nations Organization.88

After these brief references, the Atlantic Charter again faded from Philippine

discourse. The Charter had served its function for the period in exile. After the war, with

independence imminent, the Charter’s promises of self-determination seemed fulfilled or

irrelevant. The Charter would live on with one of its loudest promoters, the boyish Carlos

Romulo, who continued to play a role in Philippine politics and society into the 1980s.

84 Quezon, “The Undying Spirit of Bataan.” 85 Osmeña, “The United Nations and the Philippines,” 29. 86 “Roosevelt Pays Tribute to Quezon, ‘My Old Friend,’” Washington Post, August 2, 1944. 87 George E. Jones, “Osmena Swears in Philippine Cabinet,” New York Times, March 9, 1945. 88 Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, vol. 6, The British Commonwealth,

The Far East (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1969), 1194.

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Romulo, a prewar newspaper journalist, editor, and publisher, had joined the

Commonwealth government during the war as a communications officer. He then

followed Quezon to the United States in 1942.89 He had opened his 1943 book

celebrating the U.S.-Philippine alliance with the Atlantic Charter: “To millions all over

the earth, of all colors and creeds, this democratic premise of the Atlantic Charter was the

beginning of a dream, a hope, and a prayer. But to Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Charter

was an actuality. He knew it could be accomplished on a world-wide scale. He had seen it

work in the Philippines.”90 As Roosevelt and Quezon passed from the stage, Romulo

continued to return to the Charter to serve different purposes for different audiences. In

this, he continued the Philippine tradition from 1942-1943.

89 Cf. Carlos Romulo, I Walked with Heroes (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wilson, 1961). 90 Romulo, Mother America, xiii. Cf. also xv, 125, and 138.

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Chapter Five

Conclusion: The Three-Fifths World

As a press release, the Atlantic Charter has fared remarkably well. Most

statements released by government leaders, even those of major geopolitical powers, fade

into obscurity amid the pile of papers generated by the bureaucracy of administration. Yet

the Atlantic Charter came amid an unprecedented global crisis, with two major wars

raging at each end of the Eurasian landmass. In a sense, both Churchill and Roosevelt

failed at the Atlantic Conference. Churchill failed to secure U.S. entry into the West-

Eurasian war, and Roosevelt failed to cow Japan into a negotiated settlement in the

Pacific. Hitler solved Churchill’s problem on December 11 by formalizing the undeclared

naval war Germany and the United States had fought since 1940. This only came after

Roosevelt had to declare war in the theater he had been least concerned about. The

Conference’s failure in this sense was eclipsed by what both leaders perceived as the

meeting’s least momentous development: a press release about postwar goals. As

revealed in the national and transnational histories of rights-talk, however, documents

take on a life of their own.1

The Atlantic Charter certainly did so, but it took different lives in different places.

Contrary to many depictions of the Charter, it did not generate a singular, global,

anticolonial response even upon its appearance.2 Only by reducing the various responses

1 Hunt, Inventing Human Rights; David Armitage, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). 2 Cf. Borgwardt, “When You State a Moral Principle, You Are Stuck with It,” 532. Borgwardt claims that

“anti-colonialist writers in Africa, India, Asia, and Latin America alike advanced...the ‘Mandela’

interpretation with equal enthusiasm,” referring to Nelson Mandela’s citation of the Charter as a global,

non-racial manifesto for individual rights (quoting his 1994 memoir). As these case studies have shown,

this conflation elides a great deal of difference. Laing, “Relevance of the Atlantic Charter for a New World

Order,” 310; Laing, “The Norm of Self-Determination, 1941-1991,” 258, 261.

133

to their lowest common denominator (anticolonialism) can we speak this way. Even if,

broadly aggregated, the reaction to the Charter was a recurrence of the Wilsonian

moment – the hopes of the colonial world pinned on Anglo-American idealism – it was a

brief and inconsequential recurrence. The credulous among the 1941 anticolonialists

experienced the same arc from hope to disillusionment as in 1919. Whereas Wilson

waited until arriving in Paris to make clear he would not apply self-determination outside

Europe, Churchill offered that clarification less than a month after the Charter appeared.3

Unlike 1919, no major anticolonial movement sprung even indirectly from the Charter’s

appearance: the framers of the war’s largest contemporary movement, Quit India,

avowedly disregarded the Atlantic Charter.4

Neither the Atlantic Charter nor its authors instigated a constellation of

anticolonial activism during the Second World War. Reorienting our perspective, we can

see that a constellation of anticolonial activists used the Charter to pursue their own ends,

principally focusing on the Charter’s clauses on self-determination. Viewed from this

perspective, the resurgence of self-determination in global discourse and international

law after 1941 appears not as a process driven by the West but rather as a result driven by

anticolonial forces, both in colonies and in metropoles. This discourse framed the

arguments about the colonized world during the intertwined processes of the Cold War,

decolonization, and postcolonial conflict, from Berlin and Biafra to Hungary and Hanoi.

While the “Wilsonian moment” of 1919 introduced and globalized self-determination, the

Atlantic Charter signified self-determination’s “[entrenchment] in the global order,” as

3 On Wilson in 1919, cf. Manela, The Wilsonian Moment, 25–26; on the rise of disillusionment with Wilson

and self-determination in mid-1919, cf. 5-6, 13, and 138ff. (especially 220-221). 4 Cf., for example, Gandhi’s indignant statement from May 15, 1942: “India’s name can be found nowhere

on the Atlantic Charter.” “Interview to Bombay Suburban and Gujarat Congressmen,” May 15, 1942,

CWMG 82:285.

134

would be seen in its incorporation into the Human Rights Covenants and decisive pro-

decolonization UN resolutions in the 1960s.5

Local and Global

The cases detailed in the three previous chapters reveal several important

distinctions. First of all, initial reactions to the appearance of the Atlantic Charter differed

immensely, largely in relation to local political circumstances. In India, amid the political

stasis of the August Offer and a moribund Congress, saddled with Gandhi’s largely

unsuccessful personal satyagraha campaign, the Charter appeared as a bombshell. In the

Philippines, also colonized by a signatory to the Charter, it made little impact at first. The

difference lay in the varying legitimacy accorded to the regimes governing the two

colonies: whereas the U.S. commitment to eventual decolonization had been made clear

and meaningful power transferred to Filipinos, in India considerable distrust divided the

British government, the Government of India, Indian nationalists, and even pro-British

Indians. Whereas the Atlantic Charter seemed irrelevant to Filipinos largely content to

wait until independence in 1946, in India the Charter appeared as only another example

of bad faith on the part of Britain, and particularly Churchill. The Charter repeated and

exacerbated the unhappy reaction to the August Offer, in whose shadow the Charter

operated in Indian anticolonial discourse. Philippine disinterest in the Charter reflected its

overlords’ largely more satisfactory commitment, the Tydings-McDuffie Act. With such

a grandiose statement as the Atlantic Charter, the reputations of the signatories mattered,

as they would for future entries into international law.

5 Manela, The Wilsonian Moment, 5; Laing, “Relevance of the Atlantic Charter for a New World Order,”

311.

135

The Syrian non-reaction to the Charter in some ways mirrored the Philippine

reaction, but it likely reflected the political and military confusion on the ground. The

Free French government had, after all, declared Syrian and Lebanese independence upon

its entry into war against its Vichy rivals. Whether Syrian activists regarded these

promises as genuine or not remains unclear without consulting Arabic-language

newspapers and archives, but any confidence they had in the French promises likely came

more from their backing by the British. After all, by the late 1930s Syrian nationalists had

little faith left in their French interlocutors, who had reneged on the 1936 treaty

promising a negotiated decolonization along the lines of that in the Philippines. The

resumption of politicized bread riots by early 1942 indicates that Syrian nationalists

would not simply wait for the new French authorities to fulfill their promises.

For these Syrian leaders and the groups they mobilized, like the Philippine

Commonwealth leaders in exile in 1942, the Charter proved more helpful after 1941 than

before. For Syrians, the Charter provided a rhetoric which appealed to the world at large,

especially the rising United States. The Charter could validate the French declaration of

independence from 1941, making it useful both to the pro-French Taj al-Din eager to

show his own independence and to the National Bloc once it gained power in 1943, eager

to protect itself from French infringement. The Philippine Commonwealth leaders

mirrored Taj al-Din, but with an eye to grander implications. As Quezon and Osmeña

highlighted Philippine independence, they valorized their own regime, just as Taj al-Din

did. They also presented the Philippines as an example of Atlantic Charter sincerity to

colonized people all around the world. Whereas the Philippine leaders depicted U.S.

136

Atlantic Charter sincerity, Syrian leaders of all stripes tested it, requesting U.S.

recognition and support in light of increasing challenges from the French after 1943.

For these Philippine and Syrian leaders, the January 2, 1942, Declaration by

United Nations had reinforced the Atlantic Charter’s place in the wartime anti-Axis

alliance. Signing the Declaration became a concrete assertion of sovereignty, validating

for the leaderships of these two polities the Atlantic Charter’s recognition of their

sovereignty and self-determination. In India, the Declaration generated an opposite

reaction, in line with the disillusionment generated by Churchill’s repudiation of the

Charter’s applicability to India.6 Followed in early 1942 by the failure of the Cripps

Offer, British duplicity seemed to have reached new lows for Indian Congressmen, other

anticolonialists, and even some pro-British Indians.7 Whereas Syrian nationalists could

appeal to the United States and Great Britain in the face of French power in 1943 and

1945, the Congress faced similarly repressive measures from the British after their Quit

India motion passed in 1942, but without international diplomatic help. Syrians and

Filipinos retained the Atlantic Charter as a rhetoric to appeal to the United States, but

Congress had rejected it since 1941, in light of British insincerity. Even if they had done

so, President Roosevelt showed no inclination publicly to challenge his British ally on the

sensitive question of India.

Thus, although the citation of a particular document unites these three cases, few

other features bring them together. The extent of the use of the document depended

largely on the amount of credibility assigned to its originators. Hence, for Indians, its

6 Auriol Weingold, Churchill, Roosevelt and India: Propaganda During World War II (New York:

Routledge, 2008), 47. 7 For a recent articulation of this, cf. Saleem Kidwai, “The Role of the United States in India’s Freedom

Struggle,” Pakistan Journal of American Studies 26, no. 1 and 2 (April 2008): 85–87.

137

source in the arch-imperialist Churchill rendered the document nearly dead on arrival,

which he made sure of after September 9, 1941. For Filipinos under a countdown to

independence, U.S. credibility made the document nearly obsolete, until the

Commonwealth needed it to validate itself. For Syrians, the Charter provided an

alternative source of legitimacy located in the great powers identified as key allies against

the French. In each case, use of the document conformed largely to local contexts and

needs rather than to a global narrative. In as much as actors in each case study affirmed a

global narrative, its trajectory affirmed their own route to independence and control of the

state.

The Atlantic Charter entered complex political situations, where anticolonial

audiences appropriated it in equally complex ways. In its global-ness, the Charter truly

affirmed the local: its use spanned the globe, but actors articulated it into local contexts.

Sharing a source material, produced by an Anglo-American diplomatic exchange,

anticolonial activists made that material meaningful in their own ways and for their own

purposes.

Transnationalism

Anticolonial activists made the Charter meaningful in part by using it across

national boundaries, especially in the metropoles of their colonial states. While Atlantic

Charter citations declined in India, Indian anticolonialists used the Charter repeatedly in

their appeals in Britain and the United States.8 President Roosevelt certainly saw the

Charter as an effective tool in securing the loyalty of Syrian-Americans, urging the

8 Taraknath Das, The Atlantic Charter and India (New York: India League of America, 1942); Reginald

Sorensen, India and the Atlantic Charter (London: India League, 1942); V.K. Krishna Menon, The

Situation in India (London: India League, 1943), 8.

138

Syrian Orthodox archbishop of Toledo in 1942 to “render a further greater service by

taking advantage of every opportunity ‘to make it clear to your co-religionists, friends

and relatives remaining in the Near East’” that the United States and its allies intended to

restore “peace, liberty and justice…upon the firm basis of the four freedoms and the

Atlantic Charter.”9 The Syrian- and Lebanese-American community in the United States

supported President Roosevelt in his 1944 re-election campaign, seeking to goad him into

more explicitly supporting Syrian and Lebanese independence.10 As the case study above

outlined, the Philippine use of the Atlantic Charter rested almost entirely on its efficacy

with a U.S. audience. The Philippine Commonwealth only turned to the Charter once it

arrived in the United States.

Anticolonial actors outside of the case study countries also used the Atlantic

Charter. Citing the Charter as a universal value statement, writers, speakers, and

policymakers would work across boundaries in order to influence outcomes. This

occurred most prominently around the crisis in Lebanon, as the pan-Arab movement

gathered steam amid the war and encouraged independent Arab states to stand in

solidarity with colonized brethren. The Egyptian Prime Minister Mustapha Nahas

expressed his faith in Franco-British declarations about Levantine independence in terms

of the Atlantic Charter, subtly urging an amendment to France’s tough line on Lebanon in

9 Summary of correspondence between Archbishop Samuel David and President Roosevelt, OF 2418

(Syria), FDRPL. 10 Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana wrote to Roosevelt on October 2, 1944, enclosing a copy of the

Shreveport Journal in which the Arab-American George A. Haddad had put “a full-page

advertisement…on behalf of [FDR’s] campaign. Mr. Haddad desires that the President issue a statement re

policy of Administration in re independence of smaller nations of the Near East.” Haddad also wrote to the

President on October 30, enclosing (among others) a letter from priest Michael H. Abraham of Michigan

City, Indiana, who claimed that “in Indiana 99% of the Lebanese and Syrian people are for Roosevelt.”

Summary of correspondence between Allen Ellender and President Roosevelt, OF 2418 (Syria), FDRPL.

139

November 1943.11 U.S. letter writers pledged solidarity with Syria in terms of the

Atlantic Charter, lambasting the French removal of the Lebanese government as

“contrary to the Atlantic Charter and the first freedom of self-government” as well as

against France’s own declaration of Lebanon’s independence. The same writer saw in the

episode global significance, “testing the sincerity of the Allied Nations’ promises of

independence and self-government, the Atlantic Charter, and the four freedoms.”12

Another letter writer saw a clear, legal obligation for the United States to intervene “as

one of the two principals of the Atlantic Charter,” a position which would “win the good

will and gratitude of the peoples of the Near and Middle East.”13

The Philippines, with its close connection to the United States, proved a hub for

transnational comment at the same time as Filipinos self-referentially commented on the

world situation. Manuel Quezon, at first reluctant to speak out on the situation in India

after his arrival in the United States in May 1942, eventually wrote to Gandhi and Nehru

urging them against pursuing the Quit India movement.14 His high-profile speeches and

writings in 1942 and 1943 did not reference the Quit India movement, but Quezon’s

support for peaceful, gradual colonial reform and validation of the sincerity of the

Atlantic Charter countered the political calculus behind Gandhi’s rejection of British

promises. Privately, Quezon also had a testy exchange with the British Ambassador to the

United States, Lord Halifax, in which he contrasted Philippine trust in U.S. rhetoric with

Indian distrust of British announcements. Although he left the comparison unfounded, the

11 Kirk (M-Egypt) to Secretary, November 11, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1013; from Iraq, cf. Gaudin (Chargé,

Iraq) to Secretary, November 13, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:1024–1026. 12 Mason Stone, “Trouble In Lebanon,” Washington Post, November 21, 1943. 13 Evian Boutros, “Lebanon Incident,” Washington Post, November 21, 1943. 14 Gerald G. Gross, “Quezon Tells of Fleeing Island With a Pirate-Seawolf -- Bulkeley,” Washington Post,

May 20, 1942; Pertinax, “Quezon Said to Warn Gandhi on Japanese,” New York Times, August 8, 1942.

140

example of the Atlantic Charter would seem to support his case.15 The Chinese

philosopher Mei Yi-pao assigned great significance to Philippine decolonization,

predicting that “the lesser Asiatic peoples will look to the United States…in part under

suggestion of the Atlantic Charter’s avowal of self-determination,” validated by “what

this country has done in the Philippines.”16 The Manila Post protested against the Dutch

reconquest of Indonesia, citing the “doctrine of self-determination for subject

peoples…reiterated by the Atlantic Charter.”17 Likewise, Indonesian activists used the

Philippine-Atlantic Charter example to put their own situation in perspective, arguing that

“American respect for the Atlantic charter [in Philippine independence in 1946]

contrasted with the Dutch ‘endeavor to crush it.’”18

Indian activists used the Syrian example to excoriate British hypocrisy. V.K.

Krishna Menon, the head of the Congress’s India League in London, cited Britain’s

commitment to honor Syrian independence as an example of its willingness to dissolve

all empires but its own.19 In keeping with Indian disaffection for the Atlantic Charter,

however, this transnational rhetoric did not cite the Charter. Syrians did not use India as a

counterexample as Indians used it and as Filipinos used India. However, Syrians did use

15 Harrison, Origins of the Philippine Republic, 191. Quezon also compared the Indian and Philippine

situations during conversation on June 7, 1942, recalling his journey across the Pacific from the United

States in 1916, meeting some Indians on the steamer: “Two or three of them came up to congratulate him

on his great achievement and ask his help for Indian independence. ‘This,’ he replied, ‘I am not in a

position to give.’ They were taken aback and asked: ‘Aren’t you in favour of our independence?’ ‘Yes, I’m

in favour of it, but with your 350 million people, all you would have to do is to have every Indian sneeze at

the same moment. Give me one half of your population and I would have the English begging me for their

independence.’ They retired angry and confused” (p. 158). 16 “Asia-for-Asiatics Era at Hand, Says Chinese,” Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1945; see also “East and

West,” New York Times, October 21, 1945. 17 Robert Cromie, “Filipinos Voice Support of Java Freedom Moves,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November

14, 1945. 18 “Javanese Hail Philippines as They Go Free,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 7, 1946. 19 V.K. Krishna Menon, India, Britain & Freedom (London: India League, 1942), 3–4; cf. also Sorensen,

India and the Atlantic Charter, 7.

141

the Atlantic Charter increasingly in the interests of opposing Zionism, citing U.S. support

for Jewish settlement in Palestine as a violation of the Atlantic Charter.20

In these ways, the use of the Atlantic Charter in three distinct colonial

environments also transcended their own national boundaries. For the most part, though,

citations of the Charter remained firmly rooted in localized conflicts and desires. The

Atlantic Charter’s crossing of boundaries largely mimicked the colonial boundaries it

challenged, with Indians deploying the Charter in Britain and Filipinos deploying it in the

United States. However, as the ambiguity of the Philippine example indicates, these uses

did not always indicate opposition. Instead, Filipinos affirmed their U.S. “allies” via the

Atlantic Charter while Indians critiqued their British rulers through the same document.

Inasmuch as the Charter used a universal language, it opened the doors to transnational

rhetoric. The infrequency of such transnationalism only further attests to the highly

pragmatic attitude many activists had for the document: they found it useful to appeal to

specific audiences in pursuit of their own goals.

The Legacy of the Atlantic Charter

Beyond its afterlife throughout the Second World War, the Atlantic Charter has

continued to echo through the Twentieth Century. In light of general disillusionment with

the British and the Americans, and the ineffectiveness of citing the document, the Charter

has not resonated as much in India as in Syria and the Philippines. Its resonance in the

20 Cf. telegram from the Society of the Dentists of Damascus, in an undated 1945 telegram, from the

Central Committee of the Arab Party, Damascus, March 20, 1945; telegram from Satterthwaite (in the

Damascus office) to State Department, March 22, 1945; telegram from Secretary of the Committee

struggling against Zionism at Damascus, Abdel Kader El Midani, March 21, 1945; the Arab National

Women League, undated 1945 telegram; all in NARA RG 84, Damascus Classified General Records, 1943-

63, Box 6, vol. 5. Taraknath Das, writing for a U.S. Jewish audience, used the Charter to affirm exactly the

opposite principle, attempting to link Zionism with Indian independence, demonstrating the flexibility of

the Charter: Das, The Atlantic Charter and India, 13–14.

142

rhetoric of each state’s policymakers has mirrored general trends in the international

history of the century, making the Atlantic Charter a useful starting place for looking at

later processes of decolonization amid the Cold War.

The reformist discourse of Cold War liberalism, urging Europe and the United

States to forsake colonialism and racism in order to appeal to global subaltern groups,

finds a precedent in Atlantic Charter rhetoric.21 George Wadsworth, U.S. consul-general

in Syria and Lebanon, noted the danger of isolating Arab leaders who in the face of the

four freedoms “continued to nurse four fears – of French imperialism, British insincerity,

American isolationism, and Zionist expansionism.”22 As the war neared its end, U.S.

observers pointed out the need to uphold U.S. legitimacy and goodwill. Wadsworth

articulated this in terms of the Atlantic Charter, arguing for U.S. support of Syria and

Lebanon against French pressure since if they “cannot secure entire freedom, then the

Atlantic Charter would be belied,” along with U.S. credibility.23 The State Department’s

Near Eastern Affairs division noted in November 1945 that the United States needed to

support Syria against France in order to uphold “the faith of small nations in the Atlantic

Charter.”24

Philippine leaders articulated the need for U.S. legitimacy most strikingly.

Joaquin Elizalde used proto-Third Worldist language, critiquing U.S. propaganda which

claimed that the Second World War pitted four-fifths of the world (the United Nations)

against one-fifth (the Axis). In fact, he said, the colonized world comprised the three-

21 For an exploration of this, see Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American

Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). 22 Wadsworth (DACG-Beirut) to Secretary, March 23, 1943, FRUS 1943, 4:964. 23 C.L. Sulzberger, “Free ports sought by U.S. in Lebanon,” New York Times, February 10, 1945, 20. 24 Adrian B. Colquitt of Division of Near Eastern Affairs, Memorandum, November 6, 1945, FRUS 1945,

8:1212.

143

fifths over which the other two-fifths fought. He articulated the dilemma for colonized

peoples in terms equally applicable to Third World, neutralist rhetoric during the Cold

War: “Truly, the choice that is offered Asia today is an unhappy one. That great continent

must decide between supporting an archaic system of imperialism or accepting a cruel

future of…exploitation.” As Cold Warriors in the Third World would do a decade later,

Elizalde found solace in the nativist “oriental philosophies” which rejected Nazism – as

tradition and religion would be cited against communism in the 1950s. Elizalde called on

the United Nations not merely to vilify Japan or Nazism, but to project a positive

program of liberation which would rally the colonized people of Asia to their cause. As

U.S. leaders recognized during the Cold War, “we must beware not to turn [the common

people of Asia] into our foes.”25 Elizalde offered this alternative under the headline of a

modified Atlantic Charter.

Carlos Romulo, who served as the independent Philippine Republic’s public face

at the United Nations and in the United States through the 1950s, evoked the Atlantic

Charter throughout the period. Romulo saw the idealism of the Atlantic Charter, within

which he enfolded Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, as a powerful asset to support an image

of U.S. anticolonialism. Romulo sought to appropriate the Charter to improve the U.S.

reputation in the colonial and postcolonial world.26 He had commenced this rhetoric with

his pro-American Mother America, published in 1943, extolled the potential positive

influence of the United States, centered on its idealism expressed in the Atlantic Charter.

However, he also warned about the need to prevent the alienation of those he called “the

one billion betrayed,” who “had been fought over and shuffled about in the white man’s

25 Elizalde, “The Meaning of a Pacific Charter,” 84–85. 26 Carlos P. Romulo, “Asia Must Be Seen Through Asian Eyes,” The New York Times Magazine,

September 3, 1950; “Romulo Wants Asian Charter,” New York Times, May 31, 1954.

144

scramble for colonies, and nothing had come of their tragic struggles to throw off the

domination of their white masters.”27 Romulo implied that unless the United States lived

up to its anticolonial rhetoric, these “betrayed” would turn to Japan – as they might turn

to the Soviet Union after the defeat of the Axis.

Romulo also provides a link to another key aspect of the Cold War and

decolonization discourse: human rights. The historiography devoted to the Atlantic

Charter has focused on its relationship to human rights, but only recently have historians

begun to connect human rights with decolonization. Roland Burke’s recent work has

shown the deep connection between the two concepts for intellectuals and policymakers

from the Third World – notably figures like Romulo, an author of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, and leaders from Syria. Syrian Foreign Minister Khoury

alluded to this by emphasizing the need for the United Nations Charter to reference the

Atlantic Charter.28 Even more tellingly, in one of the first speeches at the Human Rights

Commission under the auspices of the United Nations Organization, the Syrian delegate

made a lengthy speech referencing the Atlantic Charter. This speech identified self-

determination as “the cornerstone of the whole edifice of human rights,” invoking “the

1941 Atlantic Charter at length” to demonstrate the link between domestic self-

determination (democracy) and external self-determination (sovereignty).29

In these linkages we see the importance of the Atlantic Charter.

Historiographically, the Charter provides a useful transition point between known and

well-documented global narratives: the efflorescence of nationalist movements in the

interwar period, and the explosion of anticolonial nationalism as the “Third World” in the

27 Romulo, Mother America, 93. 28 “Conference talks stress unity plea,” New York Times, May 3, 1945. 29 Burke, Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights, 42.

145

postwar period. Unlike the narrative of human rights, wherein numerous authors have

examined the link between interwar and postwar rights ideas and regimes, historians lack

a history of self-determination and global anticolonialism that bridges the 1920s with the

1950s.30 In fact, Vijay Prasad’s recent history of the Third World omits the war entirely,

skipping from Brussels in the 1920s to Bandung in the 1950s.31 Anticolonial use of the

Atlantic Charter helps provide the link between global anticolonialism in the early- and

mid-Twentieth Century. Moreover, as this conclusion has attempted to show, new

frontiers for exploring its transnational mobilization and its links to the postwar world

order may prove fruitful.

In all these ways, though, the Charter’s significance resulted not from its

interpretation by Roosevelt or Churchill. Instead, the anticolonial activists who used it

demanded more from the Charter than policymakers in the Euro-American powers had

intended to concede. Even the most pliant among the colonial leaders, the Philippine

Commonwealth, envisioned imminent global decolonization out of the Charter, far

beyond what Roosevelt had in mind or Churchill considered acceptable. Whether

encapsulating revulsion with European duplicity or serving as a higher authority to call

upon in the face of repression, anticolonial writers and speakers used the global rhetoric

of the Charter for local purposes. Rather than guiding the undifferentiated, “broad, toiling

masses of all the continents” that Churchill envisioned among the darker peoples, various

people among those masses rose up, seized the Charter, and claimed it for themselves.

They, not Euro-American policymakers, elevated the Atlantic Charter from a press

release to a political tool.

30 Cf. Simpson, “The United States and the Curious History of Self-Determination,” 676–677. 31 Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: The New Press,

2007).

146

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